


Partners, Parents, or None of the Above

by DarkFairytale



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Adoption, Angst and Humor, Bromance, Brother Feels, Brotherly Affection, Brotherly Bonding, Brotherly Love, Canon Relationships, Comedy, Epic Bromance, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Gun Violence, Homophobia, Homophobic Language, Humor, Hurt Diego Hargreeves, Hurt Klaus Hargreeves, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, M/M, Past Drug Addiction, Protective Siblings, Protectiveness, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-23
Updated: 2019-05-23
Packaged: 2019-11-04 02:47:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 41,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17890052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkFairytale/pseuds/DarkFairytale
Summary: Kenny's mom assuming that Diego and Klaus were A) a couple and B) Number Five’s parents was both bemusing and amusing at the time. But that was because it was the only time it had ever happened. Now though? Now they just can't understand why these misunderstandingskeep happening.





	1. The first few...

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure what this one is, to be honest guys, other than an extension of two of my favourite Umbrella Academy scenes: Klaus pretending to be Number Five’s crazy dad, and Diego and Klaus getting mistaken for Number Five’s parents at the bowling alley. Also I wanted to write more Diego and Klaus bromance. So this was the end result. And I apologise in advance.

It started, Klaus supposed, with the time he first pretended to be Number Five’s dad. Grant – or Lance or whatever – fell for it hook, line and sinker. More fool him.

“And what about _my_ consent?”

“Excuse me?”

“Who gave you permission,” Klaus had said, lip quivering, “To lay your hands on my son?”

“I didn’t touch your son.”

Klaus had then punched Number Five in the face and even if he had truly been Number Five’s dad, it probably hurt less than some of the things their own father had done to them over the years. Klaus had then smashed a snow globe on his own head, because why the fuck not. He had been the daddy of that situation.

“You’re crazy,” Grant, or Lance, or whatever his name was had said.

“Thank you,” Klaus had said.

Number Five was crazy too. They were definitely family that was for damn sure, even if they were brothers, rather than father and son.

“Jesus, you’re a real sick bastard,” Lance, or Grant, or whatever his name was had said.

“Thank you,” Klaus had said and spat a shard of glass out of his mouth.

Yeah, Klaus reckoned he had had that fathering business down just fine. In his personal experience, dads tended to be sick bastards in one way or another.

Then, of course, had come the first misunderstanding in the bowling alley on Kenny’s birthday.

“Excuse me! Excuse me, it’s my son Kenny’s birthday today and uh, wouldn’t your son be happier playing with kids his own age? Assuming it’s ok with your two dads?”

Klaus frowned, before realisation dawned, and he turned to look at Diego, who just looked resigned.

“I would rather chew off my own foot,” Number Five had said, very impolitely, like a very impolite child.

It made Klaus and Diego look like shoddy parents, quite frankly, but Kenny and his mom were already hurrying away from the demon schoolboy and Number Five was already heading in the opposite direction.

“If I _was_ going to date a man,” Diego said beside him, “You’d be the last man I would date.”

“You’d be lucky to get me,” Klaus retorted.

And while those parent and partner pretendings and misunderstandings had been amusing and bemusing in equal measure, it did not quite explain why it _kept happening._

***

“I’m sorry,” an overconfident waitress said to Klaus and Diego in the diner they were sitting in, back in the past after they had time-jumped back in order to stop the apocalypse. “Can I just say that you two make the most adorable couple?”

Klaus and Diego stared at her.

“We’re brothers,” Diego said.

“Oh sure,” she winked at them, “Of course you are.”

“Adoption exists, you know?” Klaus reminded her, affronted.

“I know,” she said, “I can see that. Your son is just cute as a button.”

Klaus blinked. Diego looked at Number Five as though willing him to dismiss the waitress in the same way that he had Kenny’s mother, but Number Five was in a much better mood and so was content just to lean back and smirk at them before smiling up at the waitress with his big stupid smile and his big stupid eyes.

“They don’t publicise it too much,” he told her, as though letting her in on a secret, “Times are changing, but in the current world, they like to keep a low profile. There are a lot of people who still don’t understand or accept like you do.”

Klaus supposed that that was true; they had gone back two decades and things _were_ more different than Klaus had ever noticed when he had been young. Same-sex marriage wouldn’t be legal in most US states for years yet and same-sex adoption was a whole other kettle of fish. But this waitress did not seem to mind any of that in the slightest.

Particularly when she watched Number Five beam at Klaus and Diego with a smug shit-eating grin, “But they are just the best dads a kid could ask for.”

Diego kicked him under the table, hard. Number Five didn’t even flinch.

“What a smart, lovely boy,” the waitress cooed, “Oh aren’t you just to _die for_?” the waitress pinched Number Five’s cheek and walked away.

Number Five glared after her, rubbing his cheek angrily. She had already irked him earlier by simply laughing at him and calling him a ‘darling’ when he had tried to order a strong, black coffee.

“Serves you right,” Klaus told him, “For lying to that poor lady.”

Klaus supposed that maybe Number Five was just out for a bit of revenge for the fact that the time-jump had kept all of them in their adult bodies, but poor Number Five still remained a thirteen year old.

“You’ve been happy to play my dad before,” Number Five pointed out.

“And quite how,” Diego asked, “Did she even come to that conclusion?” He turned to where Luther, Allison and Vanya were sitting _right beside them,_ and not hiding their amused smirks. “How did she make that assumption when there are literally all of us here together? Why didn’t she think that Five was yours?” he pointed his knife – luckily just a dining one, but in Diego’s hand still a deadly weapon – between Luther and Allison. “Or even yours?” he pointed it between Allison and Vanya, “If she was so determined to see a gay couple?”

“I don’t know,” Luther said. “Maybe you three look like a better fit as a family?"

Number Five let out a harsh laugh, “I think we can safely say that none of us _fit_ as a family.”

“And that still doesn’t explain why she thinks we are a couple,” Klaus agreed, tapping his spoon against his coffee cup, considering, trying to ignore the way that Ben was sniggering from the table behind them. “Have I been looking too dreamily into your dark eyes, Diego?” Klaus swooned back into his brother’s side, before grinning at him innocently.

Diego rolled his eyes but did not push Klaus away.

“She could have also made assumptions because of the, erm,” Allison cleared her throat, healing voice scraping, “You know, the leather,” she gestured towards Diego, “And the…” she waved her fork towards Klaus, “The sparkly crop top,” she ducked her head under the table. “And skirt,” she finished, raising her eyebrow at Klaus.

“That could be it,” Ben inputted.

“You know that could be it,” Klaus agreed, pointing his spoon thoughtfully at Allison, “You may have a point. They aren’t used to these great heights of fashion, yet.” He leaned back and slung his arm over the back of the booth so that it lay behind Diego.

“What’s wrong with wearing leather?” Diego insisted, frowning.

“Nothing, sweetie,” Klaus reassured him, patting the side of his face affectionately, “You look splendid. Now smile for the nice waitress lady, she’s bringing the bill over.”

“We aren’t leaving a tip,” Number Five said bluntly.

***

Vanya came up with another suggestion later.

“It could be that it’s because you don’t look like siblings, but you are brotherly affectionate with each other,” Vanya said to Klaus, “And they just assume that because you don’t look like brothers, that easy affection is because you must be lovers.”

It _had_ been nice, just recently, how easy Klaus had been feeling in Diego’s company. They were getting on as well as they had as kids, better, even, even after so many years apart and after only a few short weeks.

Klaus had been thrilled the first time Luther declared they should split into pairs and Diego had been the first to speak and had simply said, “Let’s go Klaus,” like he hadn’t given the others a thought; he knew who he wanted to pair up with. And while it was usual for Luther and Allison to pair up, and Number Five and Vanya, and sometimes Allison and Vanya, and Luther and Number Five, depending on necessity; Diego and Klaus just started to pair up naturally.

They were also talking more. In a conversation that seemed eerily familiar, in a déjà vu kind of way, Diego had asked Klaus about his powers, properly for the first time, truly wanting to understand how it – and by association Klaus’ dependence on drugs – worked.

“The whole pesky thing doesn’t seem to work unless I’m sober.”

“So it’s easier to conjure Ben when you’re sober,” Diego had confirmed.

“Yes,” Ben had said from where he was leaning against the nearby counter. Klaus had confirmed it for Diego’s ears.

“And how about conjuring the one you lost?” Diego had asked, glancing at him. Because they talked about their feelings a bit more now, too. It’s what nearly dying in the apocalypse did for you, Klaus supposed. They had talked a little about Diego's lady cop ex-girlfriend too. “What was her name?”

“ _His_ name was Dave,” Klaus had told him, wistful, remembering. “We soldiered together in the A Shau Valley in the Mountain of the Crouching Beast.”

Diego hadn’t even batted an eyelid at Klaus’ admission of having a relationship with a man. “Well, Dave must have been a very special person,” was all Diego had said, “To put up with your weird-ass shit.”

It really had felt like a familiar conversation, but maybe that was because Klaus found himself being so comfortable talking about Dave with Diego. It was refreshing, particularly as Klaus hadn’t talked properly to his siblings in years.

“Yeah,” Klaus had laughed. Dave _had_ put up with a lot of Klaus’ weird-ass shit. And he had most definitely been special. “Yeah, he was. He was kind, and strong, and vulnerable, and beautiful,” Klaus stopped, pictured Dave’s face, where he kept it safe and precious in the back of his mind. “Beautiful.”

So yes, Klaus and Diego had been spending increasing amounts of time in each other’s company, and they often partnered up for missions, and Klaus had always been tactile. He supposed that was why they got themselves into a misunderstanding for a second time.

“Diego waaaaait,” Klaus complained, trailing after Diego down the street. “Diegoooo, I’m tired. It’s been a long day. Let’s go and get some food.”

Diego huffed. “We had lunch two hours ago.”

“But I wasn’t hungry then, I’m hungry now. Please Diego, _please?”_ he grabbed Diego’s arm and hung off it, looking at him imploringly. _"_ Can we just stop for snacks somewhere?”

“Klaus we…”

“Look there! This one!” Klaus grabbed Diego’s hand and tugged him towards a shop. “Just let me get some chips or chocolate or something ok? I’ll share!”

“Fine, fine,” Diego gave in and allowed himself to be dragged.

Until, of course, they entered the shop and found themselves in the surprised and assessing stare of the cashier. It brought them both to a stop as they both realised that they had entered a shop holding hands, and both with their short-sleeved shirts showing off their matching Umbrella Academy tattoos. Except that the Umbrella Academy wasn’t going to be going public yet for another year, because they were in the past, so nobody knew the Academy symbol, so really it just looked like two young men with matching tattoos holding hands.

“Its fine,” Klaus told the young lady with a wide, pleasant smile, “He’s my brother.”

She looked even more disturbed.

“For fuck’s sake Klaus,” Diego groaned, letting go of Klaus’ hand and pushing him into the nearest food aisle.

***

“Where are we going?” Klaus said brightly.

Diego sighed. As much as he had started to enjoy partnering up with Klaus for missions, he had been intending to do this particular one alone. Number Five had asked him to do a quick reccy of a building that they would need to be getting into in the next week. He had managed to leave the warehouse that he and his siblings had occupied as a base without being followed, or so he thought. Klaus was waiting for him by the time he reached the car in the narrow street outside.

“ _We_ are not going anywhere. _I_ am going to do a reccy of a building. _You_ are staying here.”

“Oh no, no you don’t mon frère. I thought we were partners! And I have more than proven myself to be a hell of a useful lookout, if you recall.”

“I don’t even need a lookout for this, Klaus,” Diego insisted, “And I don’t need your particular skills for this, or Ben’s. It’ll be easier if I go alone to scout it out. If it’s just me, there will be less chance of detection. I’ve done it before. Many times.”

Klaus whipped his head to the side and said “Hush your noise, Ben.”

“Ben agrees with me, then?” Diego guessed, smiling with smug amusement.

“Yes, but he isn’t actually here so he doesn’t get a vote – hey!” Klaus protested to the empty space beside him as Klaus staggered a step, “We really need to have a chat about your pushing and shoving, Ben! Just because you can do that now doesn’t mean that you _should_ …”

“Klaus,” Diego interrupted, drawing his brother’s wide, black-lined eyes back to him. “You know I have a point,” Diego said.

Klaus gaped at him and then glanced between Diego and the empty air beside him. “I cannot _believe._ That is literally _just_ what Ben said.” He raised his hands in a show of incredulousness. “How are you both managing to gang up on me when one of you can’t even see and hear the other?”

Diego just shrugged, pleased to know that Ben was on his side, even if he couldn’t see him there. “Well it’s two against one, bro, so, too bad. I’m going alone.”

He turned to open the car door, but Klaus was already starting around to the passenger door.

“Hey. No! No, Klaus. I’m going alone. Number Five and Luther have okayed it! Ben and I both think it’s best you stay here. Just for this once, listen to me.”

“But we’re partners,” Klaus pouted.

“Please, Klaus,” Diego said, rounding the car and taking hold of Klaus’ shoulders. “I need you to stay here. Just, wait here for me, ok?” When Klaus refused to meet his eyes, stubbornly glaring sideways, Diego framed Klaus’ face with his hands, trying to force him to make eye contact. “Promise me – hey!” Diego lifted his hand from Klaus’ cheek to snap his fingers and encourage his brother’s drifting attention to slide back. “Promise me, Klaus. Promise you’ll stay here, and wait for me.”

Klaus sighed softly, deflating, “Ok, Diego,” he surrendered. “Yes, ok, I’ll wait for you.”

“I…” Diego started, before movement to their left had him turning his head sharply.

There were three women at the entrance to the narrow street, watching them.

“I’m sorry, can we help you?” Diego asked, attempting not to sound too sharp.

“Oh, no,” one of the women said, her tone dreamy, “Sorry we disturbed you, it was just all so…” she trailed off.

“Romantic,” one of her friends finished for her, wobbling a little on her high heels and likely the result of a few drinks. “It was goddamn romantic.”

“Come on girls, leave them alone,” the third rolled her eyes and successfully ushered her friends on their way.

“Wait for him!” the second girls’ shout carried back to them. “Don’t let that one go!”

“What,” Diego said into the silence that followed, “Was that about?”

Klaus tilted his head, looking thoughtful, “I believe they overheard you asking me to promise to wait for you, with my face held in your hands, and they believe that they stumbled upon some kind of romantic moment.” He sighed. “To be fair, it must have looked like something straight out of an epic romance…Romeo and Juliet...”

Diego stopped. He sighed; resigned now to the fact that people – more and more people, it seemed - believed that he was Klaus’ boyfriend and not his brother. Klaus looked like he didn’t particularly give a shit about it either. In fact, he appeared to be enjoying it.

“I’m going to go now,” he told Klaus firmly. “And you are going to go back inside, and wait until I come back. Ok? Don’t follow me.”

“But Romeo, all night I shall be crying out!” Klaus teased, “O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou, Romeo?”

“Keep it down, Juliet, and shut the door, would you?” Diego said, “And move away from the car so I can get going.”

“Parting is such sweet sorrow…” Klaus called as he slammed the door shut and stepped back as Diego got into the driver’s seat.

“Go back inside, Klaus,” he called to him as he started the engine and drove away, to the sight of his brother in the rear-view mirror calling;

“That I shall say goodnight till it be morrow!” and then cackling like a madman.

***

The next misunderstanding took place in a bar. Diego and Klaus had gone alone, to observe some guy that Number Five believed could be a potential candidate for various apocalypse-causing events.

Number Five had been spending a lot of time with Vanya, discussing moments of her life where significant things had made her unknowingly suppress her powers further, or make her angry or feel rejected, or where any animosity towards her family grew further. This guy they were watching was some bastard that at some point in the next ten years would tell a young Vanya that her violin playing was unexceptional. And Number Five wanted to see if anything could be changed there, just the slightest nudge, to stop a particular event from happening as it had. It was a form of art, Number Five had told them many a time, editing the past to change the future.

Diego had been a bit wary about taking Klaus with him to the bar. There was a lot of temptation in all those sparkling bottles displayed behind the bar, and the smells of alcohol and smoke. But, to Klaus’ credit, he seemed absolutely fine, and the pair of them had occupied a table in the corner with which to subtly observe their person of interest.

“I’m sorry but this man is so, so boring,” Klaus groaned. “All he is doing is getting pissed. And it’s no fun when you can’t join in,” he pouted at Diego.

“We don’t have to stay much longer,” Diego said, stopping to stifle a yawn. “It’s getting late. I’ve got all the information I need.”

“You got information from just watching the guy sit there and drink himself to a stupor?”

“Sure,” Diego said, tapping a finger against the side of his head smugly, “Trained to be a cop, remember?”

“But did you become one though?” Klaus countered, resting his chin on his hands.

Diego held a hand to his chest like the insult had wounded. “I need to take a piss and then we’ll head back, yeah?”

“Oh sure,” Klaus lounged back in his seat, waving his hand in the direction of the men’s bathroom, “Piss away.”

Diego paused. He felt bad for asking, for questioning his faith in Klaus, but he felt he had to; “Are you going to be ok here by yourself?”

“If you are asking if I am going to try and get a drink while you are gone, I’m not,” Klaus said. “Promise.” He crossed his finger over his heart. “Cross my heart and hope, hope, hope to die.” He grinned, morbid, “I have neither the will nor the cash for an alcoholic beverage, so you can go and piss easy.”

Diego rolled his eyes. “Be right back.”

“Take your time,” Klaus dismissed, crossing his arms over his chest and turning his gaze back on the man they had been observing.

Diego went to the bathroom, took a piss, washed his hands and then came back into the bar. He honestly hadn’t been gone for long. The man they had been tailing had left, though, and although Klaus had not gotten himself a drink, as promised, he had not managed to stay out of trouble.

He was currently on his feet, glaring down three well-built men who were getting up in his space.

“You dressed like that and you’re telling me you’re not a cocksucker?” the frontman sneered.

Klaus was dressed as usual; black skinny jeans tight to his long legs, boots with a wedge heel, a tight red tank top under a black military-style jacket embroidered in gold. His eyes were adorned in his usual make-up. These men had assumed, and assumed very, very wrongly, that Klaus’ appearance made him easy pickings. They would soon learn what a fucking mistake that was; Diego had seen his brother fight enough people to know that.

“Oh I’m a cocksucker alright,” Klaus replied, voice bordering on dangerously cold, “I just have no interest in going anywhere near yours, sweetheart.”

“Fucking fag,” one of the other men growled.

“Fucking classic closeted homophobe,” Klaus replied, looking cheerful, sounding poisonous.

Diego barely had time to react before the frontman tried to throw a punch. Klaus ducked it easily and then got up in the man’s face, eyes crazed and manic. Klaus had started a fight with fucking _war veterans_ before. These guys stood absolutely no chance.

But Diego didn’t want to be patching up his brother from any kind of brawl, and so decided to intervene. In an instant, he was standing beside the group, also right up in the front guy’s space.

“You try to touch him again and you will sorely regret it,” Diego warned, voice soft but laced with threat.

“And who are you?” The frontman turned his sneer to Diego, looking him up and down, taking in his shorter but broader stature, his tight dark outfit, black fingerless gloves and usual holsters. “His _boyfriend_?”

“Yeah, actually,” Diego said, making damn sure that all three of them got a good long look at the knives that he pulled from his holsters. “You got a problem with that?”

Klaus wrapped one of his long arms around Diego’s shoulders, and Diego felt his brother make a show of tracing a finger along the long white scar that ran along Diego’s head.

“He didn’t get this scar from a close shave, you know,” Klaus threatened pleasantly, “I’d say ‘you should see the other guy’ but there’s just a tombstone, so…”

Diego flipped one of the blades in his hand with ease and threw it towards the wall, where it hit the dartboard dead-centre, and in a flash he had filled his emptied hand with another knife. The men were looking a hell of a lot more wary, by that point. “I said,” Diego said slowly, “You got a problem with that?”

The frontman glanced at his minions and one of them shook his head, eyes wide. “No,” the frontman forced out, admitting defeat. “No problem.”

Klaus leant in to press a kiss against Diego’s temple and Diego was about two seconds away from telling him to stop pushing his luck. “Are you sure, fellas?” Klaus asked, and Diego didn’t have to look to know that Klaus’ eyes were probably wide, and filled with that crazed edge that he liked to bring forth to scare people a little.

“No problem,” the man gritted out.

“Good,” Diego said, and now feeling bold and certain of his and Klaus’ clear power over the situation when the men did not even make a comment about the kiss, he placed one of his hands on Klaus’ waist, “Come on babe,” he said, just to rub it in their faces and dare them to even try to make a comment about that, and steered Klaus out of the bar, keeping a knife on show just in case one of the fuckers tried anything stupid. They didn’t. They had heard the threats loud and clear.

“Diego,” Klaus swooned as soon as they got out into the night air, “If we weren’t brothers I’d be so darn horny right now.”

“Don’t make this weird,” Diego said, tone begging, as he lead the way towards where they had parked the car.

“You’re the one that called me babe, babe,” Klaus leered at him playfully as he rounded the car, looking for all the world as if that confrontation had been the most joyous thing ever.

“You’re making me regret this,” Diego complained, unlocking the car and opening the door, sliding into the driver’s seat.

“I’m sorry,” Klaus said, fanning himself like some flustered damsel as he got in the passenger side. “ I just love it when you get all protective.”

“Ok, you’ve made it weird,” Diego confirmed, even as his traitorous lips quirked into an amused smirk. “Stop.”

“Only if you stop ruining all future boyfriends for me. Dave made my standards very, very high, and you’re keeping them there. No men will ever compare.”

“I’m your brother,” Diego reminded him with exaggerated exasperation as he started the car and pulled onto the road. “I’m not supposed to help set your standards.”

“Too late,” Klaus swooned dramatically.

“Please tell me that Ben isn’t witnessing any of this.”

“Sure he is,” Klaus said. “He’s in the backseat.” Klaus turned to look at the empty backseat and then back at Diego. “He says hi. And that you really should stop setting such high expectations for boyfriend material.”

“Lord have mercy,” Diego muttered to himself as Klaus burst into cackles of laughter and Diego had absolutely no doubt that Ben was having a good old laugh about it too; to the extent that he could almost imagine the sound of it. And not for the first time he wished that he really could hear it.

***

“Why are we doing this again?” Klaus was asking Number Five, and to be honest, Diego had only been a second off asking for clarification himself.

Number Five heaved a great put-upon sigh, as though he was tired of their inferior intelligence, and explained once more;

“I’ve _told_ you. The man who owns this diner is going to die tonight. He leaves it late, drunk, and gets mugged on the way home and he gets stabbed in the struggle. The man that then will buy this place will, in ten years’ time, have turned it into an Umbrella Academy shrine and will have a conversation with a curious and understandably bitter Vanya that pretty much encourages her to start writing that book of hers.”

“And so why exactly do we have to pretend that we are a couple and that you’re our adopted son?”

“To save the current diner owner.”

“I don’t follow,” Diego said.

“Of course you don’t,” Number Five rolled his eyes. “The current diner owner is privately gay, and he wants nothing more than to adopt a child. Something about this particular day makes him stay behind at the diner he owns and drink, and stay late, and later get mugged and die. By going in pretending to be a family…”

“We _are_ a family,” Klaus reminded him helpfully.

Number Five’s jaw ticked. “…a family with same-sex parents and an adopted son, we are going to give him hope, in love, in rights, in adoption, and it means that he won’t stay late and drink, he will go home at closing, and he will not get mugged. Capeesh?”

“Au contraire,” Klaus said. “Certainly not capeesh. As much as I am happy to help save this man from dying today, how is him not-dying going to stop something that happens ten years from now?”

“This diner is a family business. He will own it until he passes it onto his children; which he can’t have unless he adopts. Either way, he will keep the diner for as long as he is able. So he won’t be selling it and it wouldn't be sold to the asshole who would buy it and turn it into some freaky museum about super children.”

“And these tiny little changes that have absolutely no direct connection to the event itself,” Diego clarified, “They actually work in changing the future.”

“Diego,” Number Five admonished, “Are you questioning my knowledge of changing the past to change the future? I was an _expert_ in my field. I know precisely what I am doing. It is the subtle changes that make the most effective differences and the less destruction. Editing the past to change the future is a…”

“Form of art,” Diego said, knowing Number Five’s usual speech off by heart by that point, “Yeah, we know.”

“Don’t get stroppy,” Number Five scolded. “Now are you going to act like my parents or not?”

“Don’t speak to your father like that, Number Five,” Klaus scolded, linking his arm through Diego’s. “You are not the parent here.”

Number Five pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation. “Sometimes I goddamn feel like it.”

“Not our fault you’re old, old man,” Diego smirked.

“It _is_ your faults that you are the ones standing here, though,” Number Five clapped back, “I figured you both get mistaken for boyfriends enough that you were the best people to ask along.”

“And who else would you have asked along?” Diego retorted, “To play a gay male couple? Because you only have Luther left as an option.”

“God could you imagine,” Klaus sniggered, “He would be so awkward.”

“Would you two focus?” Number Five snapped. “We need to go in there and put on a good performance.”

“Then wipe that scowl off your face, son of mine,” Klaus tutted, patting Number Five’s cheek. “And let the adults get to work.”

They entered the diner and took a table. The owner was serving behind the counter with a couple of waitresses, but with the waitresses preoccupied, it was him that came to the table to take their order. His name was Tom Downey and his nametag identified him as the person they were looking for, and were hoping to save. They made polite, light conversation during the taking of orders, but Klaus was in full showmanship-mode, making sure that Tom got enough hints that they were a family. Klaus would skate his fingers over Diego’s arm when addressing him, and smiling fondly at Number Five like a normal father would his son. Diego kept himself quieter than Klaus, but played along. He knew Tom was glancing at them every so often from the bar, and Diego played with Klaus’ fingers, inspecting Klaus' painted fingernails, as Diego, Klaus and Number Five talked amongst themselves. 

Number Five was just about maintaining his patience and a nice, polite demeanour but Diego could tell he was having to try very, very hard and that was highly amusing. When Tom and the waitresses were out of ear shot Klaus and Diego took turns in attempting to wind him up, because in every other circumstance he would be biting their heads off.

"Behave yourself," Diego chided when Number Five snarled at Klaus and almost broke his charming facade. "Don't make us look like bad parents."

"Fuck off," Number Five growled under his breath.

"Language, Five,” Klaus sing-songed lightly.

Number Five smiled innocently, with too many teeth. "Sorry dads," He apologised sweetly, through his bared teeth.

"We aren't angry," Diego said, "Just  _disappointed_."

Klaus grinned and sniggered. "Oooh Diego, you have that daddy voice  _down._ I'm getting all broody."

"The things I do for the future," Number Five muttered wearily into his milkshake. 

They had another brief, pleasant conversation with Tom when he brought their meals to the table, and again when he came to take their plates.

“Time to go up and have a chat,” Klaus decided eventually, taking charge of the situation. He led Diego and Number Five to the dessert counter, perusing the choices.

“Room for dessert then?” Tom asked amiably as he came to the counter. Diego could tell that he had relaxed to a genuine smile; his initial welcoming smiles had been much tighter and faker.

“I think so,” Klaus said, hand finding Number Five’s shoulder, “Don’t you kiddo?” he asked Number Five.

Number Five grinned and nodded, playing along, “Always room for dessert.”

“The boss has spoken,” Klaus agreed, “Pick something out then.” He glanced at Diego, “Do you want to share something, hun?”

Diego nodded, “Sure, whatever you’re having.”

Klaus beamed and he and Number 5 chose desserts.

“You don’t mind us sitting at the counter for them do you?” Klaus asked Tom pleasantly, already perching himself on one of the tall stools lined up alongside it.

“Not at all,” Tom said, serving them a slice of apple pie for Klaus and Diego, and unsurprisingly, coffee-flavoured ice cream for Number Five. “So,” Tom asked, picking up cloth and cleaning the surface of the glass dessert display case. “What brings you here today, gents?”

“Oh, just a lunch stop on a family outing.”

“So you _are_ a family?” Tom asked, “I did wonder but I…” he trailed off. “I didn’t want to assume.”

“It’s a little unconventional,” Klaus admitted, glancing at Diego in pretence of caution, “So we understand.”

“I don’t think it’s unconventional,” Tom said immediately, glancing around to make sure no-one was listening in before saying, “I myself am the same way inclined.”

“Oh, I see!” Klaus said brightly, lighting up as though the news made him like Tom infinitely more. “Well it has been so nice to meet you, and the food here is just wonderful. I’m Kurt,” he said, before gesturing to Diego, “And this is my partner Dante. And this is our son.”

“Your son,” The man had paused in his cleaning. He looked at Number Five first and then at Diego and finally at Klaus; chatty Klaus, who would provide him the answer.

“He’s adopted,” Klaus smiled at him. He leaned further over the counter with a stage whisper; “It’s why we don’t look alike.”

“You managed to go down the adoption route?”

“Yes. Unfortunately it had to be through single-parent adoption, though. Shame it has to be that way at the moment but laws is laws is laws, and that isn’t changing quite yet. It will, one day, but not yet,” Klaus said. “Not that single-parent adoption isn’t wonderful when a partner isn’t involved, of course. I myself was adopted and raised by a single father.”

Klaus was effectively pulling off the act of the kind of person that is very nice and very chatty but to the point where they will happily tell you their whole life story, very nicely and very chattily, without you even asking. It was a decent tactic. It meant that Tom became more involved and interested in them, which is what they needed to happen.

“And you, Dante?” Tom asked, seeming to be genuinely interested.

Diego decided to go a different route to Klaus, if only for the reason that it would be a bit unusual for both of them to have had a background in adoption. “I was raised by my Mom,” he said instead. _And an advanced chimpanzee_ he thought, but definitely did not say.

Tom nodded. “I have to say, it’s refreshing to see a couple so open and honest about their love. It’s still hard these days.”

“Oh it is, and that concern meant that I nearly missed out on my chance with Dante.” Klaus then launched into another of his spiels that Tom was somehow not finding at all tiresome; he seemed to be hanging on Klaus’ every word. “Dante and I have known each other since childhood. We studied together at the same school. I had a crush on him for years, because he is just beautiful.” Klaus sighed and rested his chin on his hand, looking at Diego like he really was the light of his life. “But alas I was never brave enough to speak to him about it. But the day after high school graduation I decided it was my last chance, so I plucked up the courage and well, we’ve been together ever since.” Klaus slid his hand over the counter to tangle his fingers with Diego’s. “I decided I was done waiting and hiding, and so when we eventually discussed adoption, we decided to just go for it.”

“It’s admirable,” Tom said, wistful. “I had considered single-parent adoption myself, actually.”

“It’s a wonderful thing,” Diego spoke up, feeling that it was about time he said something, despite having happily fallen into the role of the calmer, quieter and less excitable half of the partnership. “The process takes a while, but it’s worth it, in the end.” And he reached out and ruffled Number Five’s hair because he knew that it would really, _really,_ make Number Five angry and Number Five would be able to do nothing about it.

“Oh yes,” Klaus agreed with a grin, his eyes laughing at Diego ruffling Number Five’s hair all askew. “We are very lucky to have our Five.”

Tom stopped, frowned. “Five?”

Diego almost reacted with a grimace, because no sane person would call their child _Five_ unless they were an eccentric old man with seven children that he saw as experiments and projects above all else. He was about to silently curse Klaus his slip of the tongue, but Klaus didn’t even miss a beat in smoothing over his blunder, “It’s our nickname for him,” he said. “His name’s Fieval. His birth mother was Jewish. And possibly a big fan of ‘An American Tail’.”

Number Five scowled and Diego knew that he was inwardly seething, but Tom laughed in a kind way, looking to Number Five with a pleasant smile and Number Five had to school his expression very quickly. “It is nice to meet you Fieval.”

Number Five put on his sweet and innocent act that seemed to work well on strangers but just seemed unnervingly weird to Diego. “A pleasure to meet you too, Sir.”

“What a polite young man,” Tom beamed. “Well raised,” he said, smiling at Klaus and Diego.

“Thank you,” Diego smiled genuinely, despite knowing that not a single one of Reginald Hargreeves’ children had been raised _well;_ by their father at least. Mom, though, she had been a saint. And Pogo had been a constant, calm presence. The only reason any of them had turned out even half-decent had been because of Mom and Pogo.

“Ah shoot,” Klaus exclaimed, checking his watch, and looking at Diego, “Darling, we have to make a move or we are going to be late.” He looked back to Tom. “Could we get the bill, please, Tom?”

“Oh sure,” Tom smiled.

He got them the bill and Diego counted out what was owed in cash, along with a healthy tip.

“Thanks for a great meal,” Diego smiled.

“And don’t you give up on adopting,” Klaus told him, “If you really want to do it, you go for it. It’s worth it. Kids that aren’t wanted by their birth parents get a whole new family to love and care for, even if it is a little unconventional.”

And it was sweet, really, because that last part from Klaus actually sounded genuine; like it came from experience.

“Thank you for being so open and honest,” Tom thanked them in turn. “I think I really needed to hear it today. So, thanks.” He took the money from Diego and counted it out, looking up at him with an even bigger smile. “And thank you very much for being so generous.”

“It was well earned,” Diego said, ushering Number Five off his stool and letting Klaus take his hand.

“You guys enjoy the rest of your day,” Tom told them.

“And you,” Klaus beamed back at him.

 _Have a good day and don’t die at the end of it,_ Diego urged him silently.

And then they left, walking out into the parking lot. As they neared the car, Number Five punched Diego in the arm.

“Ouch!” Diego protested, “What the hell was that for?”

“For ruffling my hair!” Number Five growled and attempted to thwack Klaus as well but he leaped out of the way. “And you calling me _Five._ ”

“Now now, Fieval, don’t start a tantrum,” Klaus grinned widely. He stopped and turned around, bending with his hands on his knees until he was eye-level with Number Five and spoke to him patronisingly; “If you’re good we can go and get another celebratory ice cream!”

“Fuck off Klaus,” Number Five said. “I’m going back to base. Stay in the car and see what time Tom leaves. Make sure he doesn’t die.” And with that he disappeared off back to base.

Klaus smirked at Diego, “Ahh, they grow up so fast, don’t they?”

Diego rolled his eyes and shook his head.

He had been more than a little impressed by Klaus’ smooth performance in the diner and decided to tell Klaus so; “You lie scarily well, you know,” he said.

“Well husband mine, I have had much, much practice.”

Diego was not sure he wanted to know quite how and why Klaus had developed such a skill. He had a feeling the root would be sad and depressing and drug-related.

“ _Brother_ mine,” Diego corrected.

Klaus grinned, “You called?”

Diego sighed and grabbed Klaus’ sleeve, pulling him in the direction of the car. “Dave must have had the patience of a saint,” he told Klaus. “But, he was also lucky to have you.”

“Aww Diego,” Klaus beamed, looking emotional all of a sudden, throwing his arm around Diego’s shoulders. “You are too sweet to me.”

Diego heard giggling and he glanced at a group of girls gathered to one side of the parking lot, watching them and whispering and giggling to each other.

“It’s happening again,” Diego said.

Klaus glanced over at the group of girls and laughed, “Fuck ‘em,” he said airily, before shouting at them, “He’s my _brother!_ ” He pulled Diego into a tighter embrace. _“_ We like to keep it in the family! And we aren’t even the worst of it! You should see our other brother and sister!”

The girls all stopped and stared, before hurrying away, gossiping and glancing back at them.

“Jesus Christ,” Diego grumbled, disentangling himself from Klaus’ long limbs and putting his head in his hands. “I think I prefer them just misunderstanding.”

Klaus threw his head back and laughed that manic laugh of his, before stopping abruptly. “Come on, hubby, we have a mission to finish.” And he started pulling Diego towards the car.

And Diego realised he really had truly resigned himself to the fate of regularly being mistaken for his brother’s partner.

“Our family’s fucked up,” he told Klaus as they got into the car.

“Oh yeah,” Klaus agreed, without a second’s hesitation, “Totally fucked up. But at least there is never a dull moment.”


	2. and seven more...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have been totally overwhelmed and absolutely thrilled at how kind you guys have been, leaving such lovely comments and kudos and bookmarks. I'm really grateful. So grateful in fact, that I thought that you all deserved a gift. So I gift you a second chapter. And not just any second chapter. A second chapter that is almost _twice as long_ as the first one. I hope you enjoy it!
> 
> Also, a slight spoiler warning! The characters in the comics have some additional powers to the ones that are depicted in the show. I have included one (*cough* Diego *cough*) in this, as I have seen conflicting reports on whether it may or may not be looked at in future season(s). So spoiler, I guess, just in case you aren't informed on the extra powers included in the comics.

Number 1

 

“We go live now to the aftermath of the Wentworth convenience store robbery and hostage situation, where our reporter Dan Cooper has managed to interview one of the hostages…”

The reporter’s voice carried across the warehouse in which the Hargreeves siblings were based for the foreseeable; quite literally, until the future. The television set was playing to an empty audience, but it finally managed to capture Luther’s attention from across the room.

He was alone. Number Five had taken Vanya and Allison to do a time-altering mission, while Diego and Klaus had been charged with saving a hostage of a convenience store hold-up. Said hostage, according to Number Five, would have a role to play in potentially preventing the apocalypse in the future. Luther had finally just given up in trying to question Number Five’s methods on choosing who needed to be saved or swayed or not in regards editing the past to change the future. Luther had become resigned to the fact that although he had been smart enough to do research in space – on the moon – that didn’t make him smart enough to keep up with his fifty-eight/thirteen year old time-travelling brother. And besides, it had ended up being a pointless goddamn mission on the goddamn moon, anyway, and then the goddamn moon had exploded and they had all had to come back in time to stop that happening. Spaceboy had abandoned the moon and the moon had abandoned Spaceboy.

Luther was on neither of the days’ missions. He had been persuaded to stay and keep an eye on things at base. Apparently he would have been too big and noticeable for both missions. Which, fair - well, actually, not fair, to be lumbered with the body of an ape - but, yeah, he got the logic. He understood why, even when it made him feel like a terrible Number One and leader once again; his dad’s inadequate failure. 

His attention turned back to the news report on the television. He had been drawn to it in the first place because he was pretty sure that the convenience store robbery in question had been the one that Diego and Klaus had been aiming to intervene in.

“There were five of us,” an elderly lady was telling the reporter Dan Cooper, who had asked her how many hostages there had been. “There was me, the shopkeeper, another lady who seemed kind of familiar…” The lady who seemed familiar was a local politician, and the one that had needed to be saved for potential apocalypse-prevention. “And,” the old lady said, “The two young men who saved us.”

“Saved you?” reporter Dan Cooper asked.

“Oh yes,” she beamed, “They took down the robbers. One of the robbers was on fire for a while and another one got a knife in the hand.” She held up her wrinkled hand as though to demonstrate, looking positively thrilled about it. It was slightly disturbing, the cheer about the violence from a lady that looked like the typical wholesome granny. “And the robbers ran away.”

The door to the warehouse banged opened behind him and Luther glanced over his shoulder when he heard Klaus whoop and shout, “Honey, we’re home!” and the following clatter of Diego shedding some of his weaponry.

Luther turned back to the screen, intrigued as to what the old lady had to say about his brothers.

“We only heard that three hostages have been spoken to by the police,” reporter Dan Cooper asked, clearly excited at this new information, and being the first news station to receive it.

“Well the boys didn’t stick around,” the old lady said, as though she was already highly fond of them after only a ten-minute hostage situation.

“They should be congratulated for their heroics,” reporter Dan insisted. “Did you get their names?”

“Oh no, they were too busy jumping on the robbers’ backs and throwing knives at them.”

Reporter Dan blinked, but did not look stunned for long. “What did they look like? The young men?”

The old lady looked thoughtful. “One of them was dressed a little like a ninja and the other one was dressed very prettily.”

Reporter Dan Cooper’s eyebrow lifted. “And these two young men knew each other?”

“They knew each other,” she agreed. “They seemed to know each other well.”

“Friends? Work colleagues? Brothers?”

The old lady chuckled. “They didn’t look alike so if they were brothers they were adopted ones…”

Luther nodded to himself. Bingo. Before realising that they were supposed to be keeping a low profile and the fact that this report was on the television in the first place was a risk. They were in the past. The young versions of themselves were still at the Academy. If their past-dad even got an inkling that something strange was afoot…

But then the old lady carried on… “…But they bickered like an old married couple,” she sighed wistfully, smiling, “Like me and my Geoff used to.”

Both reporter Dan and Luther frowned incredulously.

“Are you suggesting that these two young men were…a couple?” asked reporter Dan.

“Quite possibly,” the old lady said, chipper, “It’s more common these days you know. One of my grandsons is…”

Reporter Dan Cooper, who was probably being told in his earpiece or by a guy behind the camera to cut the old lady off from talking about the commonness of homosexuality on live television in the 1990s on a channel that wasn’t keen on the topic, thanked the old lady and said;

“Well, if anyone has any information on our prettily dressed ninja hero ‘old married couple’,” he laughed, polite and fake, like the idea was charming but insane. Like poor old Betty had lost her marbles during the hostage fright. “Please let the authorities know, and I am sure that Betty here and the other hostages would like to thank the young men who came to the rescue here today. This is Dan Cooper reporting…”

Luther tuned the television out. He nearly scoffed. Old married couple? What a load of…

He turned and looked over his big shoulder, at where Klaus and Diego were both trying to inspect Diego’s hair. Klaus looked fully prepared to inspect with his fingers like some primate groomer, and Diego was knocking Klaus’ hands out of the way while they bickered about why Diego’s hair had gotten singed at the ends.

“Well you didn’t have to set him on fire!” Diego was protesting.

“Well what else should I have done?” Klaus asked. “Flambéed robber is the best kind. It has a _flare_ to it. Not like your,” he waved his hand about as he thought of an appropriate term, “Shish kebabing them with pointy objects.”

“They are _knives._ ”

Old married couple, huh? Luther maybe could see why Betty might have come to that assumption, actually. He turned back and smiled to himself. It was probably for the best that Betty had put the news and authorities on the path of a couple. It kept the Hargreeves’ and their presence in the past out of the spotlight. Even though, if it had been Luther and Allison that had been there instead of Diego and Klaus…well...he cleared his throat awkwardly, colour rising to his cheeks even though he was sitting alone...well, then there may have been a little more truth to it.

Still, he shook his head, laughing to himself, Diego and Klaus? A couple?

“Ouch! _Diego,”_ Klaus protested loudly. “I’m trying to _help_ you.”

A couple of idiots, maybe.

 

***

 

Number 2

 

Between leaving the house at seventeen and reuniting for their father’s funeral, Diego had only seen his siblings a small handful of times.

Unsurprisingly, he did not see Luther at all. Diego had known where Luther would be; at home with dad. And Diego did not want to visit either of them. He had snuck into the house once or twice a year to see Mom, but otherwise he kept well away. She had kept him vaguely updated on Luther and their dad, though, whether he had wanted to know or not. He knew that Luther had gone to the moon. But he hadn’t known about the accident that had ultimately been the reason their dad had sent Luther to the moon in the first place.

Diego had seen Allison’s face plenty, on magazine covers and on TV when he had bothered to watch anything other than news reports, but he had only seen her in person a few times; he had gone to meet Claire when she was born.

He had not seen voluntarily seen Vanya. He hadn’t known much about her or spent much time with her even before they had all become estranged. And then she had written that book about their family - revealing and bitter and biased against them - and that had been the nail in the coffin for Diego. Besides, she was ordinary, or so he had thought, and Diego had decided that it had been safer for her if he stayed away anyway. 

Although he hadn’t seen Klaus much over the years, he had seen him more than the others. A vigilante fighting crime and a drug addict that helped fund particular crimes often frequented the same parts of town. He was the one that had gotten Klaus to check into rehab the first couple of times, but after those failed he mainly kept tabs on Klaus, rather than seek him out; because every time he tried to pin him down Klaus seemed to slip through his fingers, as restless and elusive as the ghosts he kept company with.

But now, after the funeral and their reunion and Number Five’s return and the apocalypse and their journey back in time, Klaus wasn’t disappearing on him anymore. In fact, the exact opposite had occurred; he was stuck to Diego like glue half the time.

And Diego, despite acting long-sufferingly resigned to it, found he did not really mind it that much at all.

This specific moment, however, Diego _did_ mind. Because Klaus wasn’t stuck to Diego’s side like glue, he was stuck there with blood; Klaus’ blood, that was running down his side after getting attacked. Diego had heard Klaus’ cry of pain and had raced his way to find his brother already on the ground, having been slashed in the side with a knife. The attacker was already gone.

Diego currently had Klaus’ long arm hauled around his shoulders as he supported him towards the nearest street. Diego had already called for an ambulance, but they needed to be in a place with vehicle access. Klaus was pressed up against his side, his tank-top tacky with the blood that had spilled before Diego had managed to stem the flow by wrapping a makeshift bandage around his stomach. The wound wasn’t fatal, but it needed attention. He wouldn’t be able to get Klaus back to base without drawing attention, and besides, they didn’t have Mom anymore to carry out decent first-aid. So he had had to resort to an ambulance.

“This hurts like a little bitch, Diego,” Klaus slurred, pained, in Diego’s ear.

“I know bro, I know. But it’s going to be fine. I’ve called for help.”

“Thanks,” Klaus gave him a smile that was more of a grimace.

“Just stay awake until the ambulance gets here, ok?”

“But _Diego…_ ” Klaus grumbled.

“No buts, bro.”

“No butts at all? Aww that’s a shame,” Klaus huffed a laugh, then groaned and clutched his side, doubling forwards in Diego’s grip.

“I swear to god,” Diego rolled his eyes heavenward. “Stop laughing when you’ve been stabbed.”

“Not stabbed, Diego, just slashed at. I'd have thought somebody of your experience would be able to tell the difference. And besides, you would have done a _much_ better job at stabbing me.”

“I’d never stab you, Klaus,” Diego told him seriously, coming to a stop as they reached the street. He lowered Klaus to the sidewalk to rest against a building. “And maybe don’t make a comment like that to the ambulance crew, yeah?” Diego had been arrested enough times, thanks very much.

“What do you take me for? A fool?” Klaus griped, hissing between his teeth and dropping his head back against the wall, closing his eyes.

“I sometimes wonder,” Diego said softly, crouching down to Klaus’ closed-eye-level, “Don’t pass out, Klaus,” he snapped his fingers in front of Klaus’ face. “Stay awake, ok?”

Klaus’ eyes cracked open. “I can’t fall asleep, not with you and Ben both yammering on,” he grumbled.

Diego was glad to hear that Ben had his back.

The ambulance, luckily, didn’t take too much longer, and the crew got Klaus in the back and were checking him over in no time.

“You want to ride too?” the woman guessed.

“Yeah,” Diego said, stating the obvious, because to him it was more than obvious that he and Klaus knew each other and that Diego wasn’t just some random concerned citizen that had found Klaus bleeding out on the street. On cue, Klaus started calling Diego’s name behind her and making grabby hands at him with one arm.

“Are you next of kin?” she asked Diego.

“Brother,” he said.

She glanced back at Klaus, who was begging loudly for Diego’s presence, and then turned back to Diego, raising her eyebrow doubtfully at him. Did she not believe him?! Why the hell did nobody believe that they were siblings? It wasn’t like adoption was a fucking rarity.

“If I said I was his boyfriend would you let me get in any damn faster?” Diego sniped.

Her expression cleared as though that made so much _more_ sense, like Diego had only said ‘brother’ because he thought that she wouldn’t like the idea of him being Klaus’ boyfriend and _Jesus Christ_ , had Number Five brought them back to some kind of alternate past where adopted brothers of different racial backgrounds were not _a thing_?

“Get in,” she said, and Diego didn’t bother arguing. He leaped in past her to sit at Klaus’ side.

He stayed by Klaus’ side for as long as he was able, until they took Klaus off for x-rays and sewing up and Diego had to wait in the waiting room. He got a message to the others, letting them know, telling them that it wasn’t fatal, that he would wait with Klaus and bring him back to base whenever the hospital let Klaus leave. But to his surprise, they all turned up, on mass. The whole mismatched, dysfunctional cohort.

“How the hell did it even happen?” Number Five asked angrily, arms crossed, eyes narrowed.

“The dude had a knife.”

“And you have _knives_. Plural.”

“And those knives were a bit busy, Five,” Diego snapped. “Fighting off three other guys.”

“Hey, hey,” Luther held up his hands, “It’s no-one’s fault but the guy who hurt Klaus.”

Diego stopped, blinked. Luther was on _his_ side? Huh. That made a change.

“Thank you Luther!” Diego gestured to him, glaring at Five.

Number Five rolled his eyes, took a sip from the polystyrene cup of coffee in his hand and pulled a very dissatisfied face.

“We got jumped, guys,” Diego said, throwing his hands up, “I’m sorry, ok?”

“It could have happened to any of us,” Allison reassured him, sending him a smile. “Our powers can’t help us all the time.”

They had all had their say but Vanya, and Diego found himself turning to her on newfound instinct. She looked surprised at his inclusion of her, but a little pleased as well.

“The main thing is that you got to Klaus and got him help and that his injuries aren’t life-threatening,” Vanya said. “That’s what’s most important.”

Diego smiled at her, even if he was still silently berating himself, thinking through all the things he could have done differently, to have gotten to Klaus just a few seconds before.

Their conversation came to a halt when a nurse appeared from down the corridor.

“Diego?” she asked on recognising him. “Your partner is asking for you, you can go and see him.” Her eyes moved to the others, all staring at her with their eerily familiar stares, despite their lack of shared genes. “After that, visitors can go in one at a time.”

When she left, Diego closed his eyes, took a breath, and turned to face the puzzled and amused stares of the others.

“Don’t ask,” was all he grumbled, before turning on his heel and stalking towards Klaus’ room.

Klaus was indeed awake, and propped up on the pillows. He smiled widely at Diego when he entered.

“They told me my partner was waiting outside,” Klaus said in greeting. “And at first I thought ‘Dave!’ But then I remembered ‘but Dave is dead’, and I was very sad for a little while. But I decided to just go with it and told the nurse to show my ‘partner’ in. I figured they probably meant you, what with all the previous misunderstandings…”

Diego eyed his talkative brother suspiciously. “What have they given you?”

“Nothing much, actually. I’m just high on life, high on being alive. Ben can back me up, can’t you Ben?” Klaus looked at, presumably, where Ben was standing. “Well, not on the life bit, of course, but he can attest to the fact that I haven’t been given anything.” He looked from Ben to Diego as though expecting Diego to have heard whatever Ben had said. Diego just nodded. “I told them I had a history of drug abuse so they haven’t given me anything strong,” Klaus carried on, looking a little appalled at his own behaviour. “I would have never believed there would come a day when I would turn down such a thing but…” he shrugged. “So you’d better be proud of me.”

“I am proud of you,” Diego said, dragging the solo chair in the room closer to Klaus’ beside. “And I’m just glad you’re doing ok.”

Klaus fluttered his mascaraed eyelashes at him. His skin was still pale, but he looked much, much better. The nurse had said the cut was reasonably shallow, despite the amount of blood, and had required stitches but not surgery. “You are the sweetest partner a guy could ask for.”

“Ugh, don’t,” Diego rested his elbows on the mattress so that he could drop his face into his hands. “Believe it or not, telling them I was your partner was the path with the _least_ amount of questions.”

Klaus hummed thoughtfully.

“Though now the staff have the rest of our glorious siblings in the waiting room, so I’m just hoping they don’t blow my story and make it sound weird.”

“The others are here?” Klaus looked genuinely surprised.

“I told them they didn’t need to because I was here, but they came anyway. Of course they did. They were worried about you.”

“Huh,” Klaus said, glancing towards where Ben must be, and back to Diego. “It makes a nice change to wake up in a hospital with alive people waiting for me.”

“I tried to keep tabs on you, you know,” Diego said. “Sometimes I didn’t hear you’d been in a hospital until after you’d already signed yourself out.”

“I know,” Klaus reached out to pat Diego’s hand reassuringly.

Diego sent him a fond smile. “I can go and get the others, if you're ready to see them?”

“Oh sure,” Klaus beamed. “If they are here, let’s get them all in; make a party out of it. It’s nice to know an injury can bring us all together these days.”

“Yeah, well, don’t do it again. You scare me like that much more and you’re gunna be the death of me, bro.”

“Ahh but I’ll be the afterlife of you, too, darling, so just remember that before you go dying on me,” Klaus took his hand and squeezed it, winking at him. “You’re stuck with me for life _and_ death, Diego.”

Diego rolled his eyes, smirked, and got up. “That doesn’t sound too bad,” Diego said, and Klaus looked positively thrilled. Diego looked at the space in the room where Ben was keeping his faithful vigil. “And I’m sure Ben doesn’t have any complaints.”

Klaus’ gaze flicked away and back again. “He says he has a few.”

Diego laughed, released Klaus’ hand, and then went to fetch the others.

The nurses were displeased that they ignored the one-visitor-at-a-time rule, but six Hargreeves’ were too stubborn a force to be reckoned with, and eventually the nurses gave up. 

***

 

Number 3

 

 

“Oh my god!"

Allison closed her eyes and took a breath but did not turn around, anticipating an excitable fan tapping her on the shoulder with a nervous ‘excuse me?’ and wanting a photo or an autograph…until she remembered that she was in the past, at the same time as her younger self, and neither of them were famous yet. Letting out a small sigh, a mix of reminiscence and relief, she turned around, curious as to why the girl behind her had made the exclamation.

“Look!” a teenage girl was saying to her friend in the queue behind Allison, “Aren’t they the most adorable thing you have ever seen?”

Allison raised her eyebrow, and followed their line of sight.

The girls were looking at the couch in the corner of the coffee shop, where Allison had left Diego and Klaus in order to get them all caffeine fixes after a particularly gruelling mission. Diego had dislocated his shoulder and was on pain medication, which made him drowsy, and that was therefore very, very likely the only reason that he seemed to be allowing Klaus to paint the nails of his good hand. He looked pretty glazed, his eyes drifting between Klaus’ face and the nail painting, but was possibly not quite registering what he was watching. His dislocated arm was in a sling; ironically the same one that had been shot and put in a sling not so long ago in the very distant future. Klaus had his tongue poking out slightly from between his teeth as he concentrated on his nail-art.

The teenage girls’ friend sighed, dramatically forlorn, “All the best ones are gay or taken,” she nodded towards Klaus and Diego, “Or both.”

Allison had to cover her mouth with her hand to smother her laugh and turned back around to face the correct direction of the queue so that the girls did not see her.

The girls - who of course had no idea that Diego and Klaus were actually adopted brothers, and one of them half out-of-it on pain meds - had only the view of two young men, who looked unalike, sitting close together, one painting the others’ nails, and Allison could understand why they had come to that assumption.

It took another few minutes for Allison’s turn to be served, the barista, obviously, showing no inkling of recognition. In this period of time; back in the past as adults, she found that Klaus would get looks for his choice of outfits, Luther would get looks for his size, and Diego would get looks for his weapon harness – though that was little different from the future, really – but Allison; nobody stopped and stared at Allison because she was that-woman-they-saw-in-that-film, because that film was over a decade away from being made. Allison had been famous since she had been a child, and for people not to look at her like they recognised her from somewhere was actually refreshing.

It took another few minutes for the drinks to be ready, and she balanced them on a tray to take them over to her brothers at the couch and low coffee table. By the time she arrived with the drinks, Diego and Klaus were both asleep. Diego’s head was slumped on Klaus’ shoulder and Klaus had his head resting in Diego’s softly spiked hair. Allison could see the teenage girls across the coffee shop peering at the sleeping duo like they couldn’t help themselves.

Allison smirked to herself and reached out to take her own coffee. In any other circumstance, the movement would have had Diego alert and awake in an instant - just seeing him asleep in a public place was bizarre - but the drugs had clearly done their job. As it was, it was Klaus that noted the movement first, his eyes cracking open to look at her.

“It’s mean of you to take advantage of him when he’s half out-of-it,” she said, nodding at Diego’s freshly painted nails.

Klaus smiled, sly and sleepy, and said, “Terribly amusing, though, right?”

Allison rolled her eyes and pushed one of the mugs of coffee towards him.

“Ahh, caffeine,” Klaus murmured, “My only remaining drug.” But he did not move towards it, seeming reluctant to move and wake Diego. Though as Allison began to sip on her own, Klaus’ want for the coffee won out; “Wakey wakey Diego,” he crooned, patting Diego’s cheek lightly. “Allison has come back bearing coffee.”

Diego blinked awake and frowned, confused, before registering the cups of coffee on the table.

“Good. Thanks,” Diego said, reaching out towards them with his hand. “Need energy.” He then spotted his newly painted nails and his frown deepened further, as though he couldn’t understand why they were now a different colour. “What the…” he attempted to wipe his hands off on his trousers, until Klaus caught his hand.

“Hey! Careful, they aren’t dry yet! And I put a lot of thought into that! Picked the colour and everything…”

“They’re _black_ ,” Diego said, as though he doubted that there had been little choice made on colour at all.

“Exactly!” Klaus said proudly, “And now they match _all_ of your outfits.”

Allison had to nod at that. It was true; black nails would match all of Diego’s outfits well.

Diego’s drowsy eyes narrowed at her, “Don’t encourage him.”

“Too late for that,” she laughed, pushing his coffee towards him as Klaus shifted Diego properly off him so that Klaus could pick up his own. “Drink up,” she told Diego, “You’ll be bitching at him properly for it in no time.”

“Oh no don’t say that,” Klaus whined half-heartedly, “I was going to try and get some make-up on him first.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” Diego grumbled.

“Oh Diego, you know I would.”

“Yeah,” Allison agreed, smiling into her coffee. “He would.”

Klaus didn’t follow through with his threats of make-up, but, as expected, Diego _did_ have a bitch about the nails when he was more alert again.

Diego was looking at his hands. “And it’s only one hand,” he complained. “You didn’t even paint both.”

Klaus visibly brightened. “Oh well, I can most definitely paint the other one, if that’s what your problem is.”

Diego frowned. He seemed to think about it. He shook his head and tucked his injured arm even further into his sling as though trying to protect it from any decoration. “I don’t think so.”

Klaus sighed dramatically, “ _Fine_. Allison, do you have any polish remover?”

Later that day, Allison gave Diego a bottle of nail polish remover. She did not miss the fact that he never used it, and continued to have black painted nails on one hand until it all chipped off on its own.

 

***

 

Number 4

 

 

“ _Diegooooo_ ,” Klaus called out, scrabbling about on the floor. “Diego help me!"

Diego came skidding across the park from where he had been using the phone. “What? What is it?” Diego sounded worried.

“I’ve lost my rings, Diego,” Klaus complained, hunting through the grass with his nimble fingers. Normally he was magpie-eyed to anything of shiny value. Why were his eyes failing him _now_?

“You’ve lost your rings?” Diego repeated flatly before going straight into a classic Diego-rant; “Jesus Christ, Klaus, I thought you were in trouble!”

“My rings are in trouble, Diego,” Klaus stopped to stare up at him, scandalized at his brother’s lack of care for his jewellery. “My _rings_ are in trouble.”

“And how,” Diego asked, sounding incredibly long-suffering in that endearingly long-suffering way of his, “Did you manage to lose them?”

“I took my jacket off and they got caught in the sleeve and scattered,” Klaus explained, turning his eyes back to the grass. It was a warm, sunny day and his black leather coat had gotten too warm. He had made a fashion faux-pas for the current temperatures. And removing said coat had left him with a much lighter hand. “Help me find them!”

“How many?” Diego sighed.

Klaus checked his hands, trying to remember how many he had had on his hands in the first place. Three on hello hand, two on goodbye hand. Hello, goodbye...the human Ouija board felt a little light on the goodbye side. Number 4 had lost two rings.

“Two,” said Klaus.

And, like the good brother Diego was, he sighed wearily and helped Klaus search.

“Ben, you found anything?” Klaus looked up at Ben, who was half-heartedly looking around but not trying very hard _at all_.

Ben shook his head. “Maybe you flung them pretty far.”

Klaus shooed him away, “Then be a love and go and look would you?”

They searched for another five minutes before Klaus leapt to his feet with a hiss. “So much for super powers,” he growled. “Why didn’t either of us get super eyesight or something?”

“Because that would be lame,” Diego replied distractedly, still searching; he had been given a mission and he was going to see it through, because that was how Diego worked. His competitiveness was an asset sometimes; missing jewellery hunting included. “Ah-hah!” Diego called in triumph, “Klaus!”

Klaus bounded forwards to his brother, who had turned on his knees to hold up something shiny.

“Is this one of them?” Diego asked smugly.

Klaus saw the ring and beamed. “Yes! You found one!” He was about to take it, and Diego moved to stand, when he heard a thrilled little scream.

Klaus turned around and found that a group of people had gathered to watch them.

“Ah shit,” Diego moaned under his breath and Klaus could barely hold in a laugh as he turned to look back down at Diego. On one knee. Holding up a ring. To Klaus. Diego was looking up at him with utter and complete resignation, well used to the frequent misunderstandings by that point. “I walked right into that one, didn’t I?”

“Well, knelt right into it, really,” Klaus corrected with a grin, trying to hold back a hysterical laugh. It didn’t help that Ben was practically rolling about laughing on the grass about ten feet away.

“Ben’s laughing at us isn’t he?” Diego guessed correctly under his breath.

“I think he’s laughing so hard it might kill him,” Klaus said. “Again.”

“Better hurry up and say yes then and get us out of this,” Diego said, through teeth gritted into a smile, very aware of all the attention they were attracting.

Klaus raised a haughty eyebrow. “What if I say no?”

“Like you would turn me down,” Diego scoffed.

“Actually, I think I recall telling you that you’d be lucky to get me,” Klaus held out a hand to help Diego to his feet, shouted “Yes!” for the onlookers and took the ring, popping it back on his finger in its rightful place.

The crowd cheered and started to disperse as Klaus wrapped his arm around Diego’s shoulders. “Feeling embarrassed yet?” Klaus asked him airily.

Diego just shook his head, a laughing smile cracking his face. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but at this point I’m kind of used to it.”

“It’s not legal for men to marry!” some haggard old hag decided to rave at them from the side-lines.

“And fuck you too, Madam,” Klaus shot back, loudly.

“It’s not legal for brothers to marry either,” Diego muttered beside him, “So there’s that too.”

“Oh don’t shout that at her Diego, you’ll bring an angry mob down on our heads,” Klaus teased. “Torches and pitchforks.” He glanced at Ben, who had only just managed to get back on his feet, wheezing. “Are you done now, chuckles?”

“Yeah,” Ben gasped, wiping invisible tears from his eyes. “I didn’t find your second ring though.”

Klaus sighed. “Let’s just head back before we end up causing more of scene.”

“What about your other ring?” Diego asked.

“We’ll give it up as lost,” Klaus said, his hand automatically finding the dog-tags around his neck. “I’ve got the special stuff still on me.” He had the most important things kept safe. The things that mattered.

Diego glanced sadly at Klaus’ dog-tags and patted his shoulder in understanding sympathy, moving forwards to pick up Klaus’ coat from where Klaus had abandoned it by a nearby tree.

“Uh, Klaus?” Diego said as he picked up the coat, and then held it up in Klaus’ line of sight. “You didn’t look very hard did you?”

Klaus spotted the other ring immediately; still tangled in the black fur of the cuff of Klaus’ coat sleeve.

“Ah,” Klaus smiled innocently, apologetically, as he sidled up to Diego to take his coat back. “My bad, my bad, my apologies, mi hermano, mi esposo…”

Diego pinched the bridge of his nose. “I am not your husband, Klaus. Didn’t I tell _you_ that if I _was_ going to date a man that you’d be the last man I would date?”

“Well, you’re not dating me, silly,” Klaus winked. “We’re getting married. You proposed, remember?” He pulled Diego’s hand away from his face and slipped the second ring on one of Diego’s fingers before Diego could react. “We’ll be pronounced man and man,” Klaus grinned. “Til death do us part, or not, as the case may likely be.”

Ben was cackling again. “I call best man!” he shouted.

“Ben says he’s best man. The girls can be bridesmaids, Luther can be ring bearer, and Number Five can be a pageboy.” Klaus cackled with laughter at the mental of image of Number Five in the attire and pretence of a pageboy; the look of intense, unadulterated fury that would be on his face.

“Dear god, don’t tell him that,” Diego laughed. “He’ll skin you alive.”

“Not before my wedding!” Klaus protested. “I need to look fabulous!”

 

***

 

Number 5

 

For someone that could quite literally travel through time, Number Five did not have the _time_ or the _patience_ for most people. Because most people were stupid.

Only Dolores and his siblings ever really made the cut of people he tolerated, and even then, they wore his patience pretty thin, and could actually be pretty stupid sometimes, too. Still, they were family. His family. And that made a whole world of difference.

Because Number Five had time for very, very few people otherwise.

Exhibit A) the asshole who had just knocked into Number Five, pretty fucking hard, and then declared intentionally loudly that kids had no goddamn respect these days.

“You were the one who shoved into _me,_ asshole.” Number Five shot back at him, making the man stop in his tracks. He looked stunned that Number Five had even called him out, let alone at his language, but that was because Number Five looked like a thirteen year old schoolboy. Little did this asshole of a man know that Number Five was a fifty-eight old ex- _assassin_ and had no time for _this_ bullshit. Not when he had to alter time for so much _other_ bullshit.

“Excuse me?” the man said, voice hard and cold, turning around to stare down at him angrily.

“Yeah,” Number Five agreed, baring his teeth in an unpleasant, condescending smile, “That’s what you are _supposed_ to say when you barge into someone. _Now_ you’re getting it. Excuse _you._ ”

The man took a step forward, that Number Five supposed he was supposed to find intimidating. He did not, obviously, find it the least bit intimidating. “You rude little shit.”

“Oh, my delicate sensibilities!” Number Five bemoaned sarcastically. “How could you? I am so, so, distressed by your creative, demeaning insult, you absolute waste of goddamn space; space that you can’t even navigate properly, so you have to barge into people instead.”

The man’s fists were clenched, but they were in a public space, and there was fuck all he could do if he didn’t want to look like a monster beating a thirteen year old kid. Being a thirteen year old kid had its uses. Sometimes. Puberty for a second time, being unable to buy coffee without being laughed at or buy alcohol legally for another eight years, and having his siblings often mistaken for his parents; yeah, that was all total bullshit. But every once in a while being seen as a child had its advantages. It had allowed him to sneak into the Umbrella Academy once or twice, pretending to be his thirteen year old self; something that his siblings – still in their adult bodies – had been unable to do for their own thirteen year old counterparts.

“If you were my kid,” the man hissed, “I’d hit you so damn hard you’d never speak to anyone like that ever again.”

“I really didn’t need this today,” Number Five snarled, before getting up in the man’s face. Number Five was over a head shorter than him, but that did not stop him from looking very, very menacing. He had had plenty of practice by that point. “You, pal, are treading on very thin fucking ice. I’m not in the mood to put up with childish fucking behaviour from a rude fucking…”

“Oh there you are! Our little _darling,_ ” said a relieved and fond voice behind him, and the next thing Number Five knew he had a lanky arm wrapped securely around his shoulders, the Umbrella Academy tattoo right below Number Five’s chin. Klaus held him as though he would never let him go again. “We’ve been worried _sick_.”

Number Five had an idea of what Klaus was doing. Clearly him arguing with the man had caused too much of a scene and had been attracting attention, and Klaus had swept in as a diversion to normalise the situation and make people lose interest.

Number Five had suggested pretending to be Klaus’ son when he had needed information on the artificial eye, but as though he had opened floodgates, there had been a number of misunderstandings of the same ilk since; that kid’s mom at the bowling alley, and then since they had arrived in the past, several more times besides. Number Five had irritatingly been mistaken as the child of each one of his living siblings at one point or other, but, most commonly, as Klaus and Diego’s son. He had pretended to be Klaus and Diego’s son on a separate occasion, for the good of the future, but he had not enjoyed it. Quite how any of those imbeciles – beloved, of course, but imbeciles nonetheless – could possibly be mistaken or believed to be his parent was beyond him.

Speak of the devil, Diego came striding up, putting himself between Number Five and the man and crouching down a little to look into Number Five’s eyes.

“Now what were you thinking?” Diego asked, expression warning Number Five to cool his temper. “Running off like that?” He then stood and turned to face the man. “Thank you for finding him…”

“Finding him? The little shit shoved into me and then started shooting his mouth off.”

Klaus made a sound of shocked outrage, and long-fingered hands covered Number Five’s ears. It took all of Number Five’s inner strength and remaining shreds of patience not to remove them. Immediately.

“How could you” Klaus asked the man, sounding appalled, “Use such _language_?”

“ _My_ language? Your foul-mouthed son needs to learn some fucking respect and manners…”

“The only person that sounds like they need an attitude adjustment here,” Diego said, his tone still soft but also mildly threatening, “is you. Threatening a child in public,” Diego tutted, “oh dear.”

The man looked like he was going to turn away, but stopped himself at the last second. “No wonder he’s fucked up,” the man hissed, defensive. “Coming from a home like yours.”

“A loving one, you mean?” Klaus said. His hands had moved to Number Five’s shoulders, and they had tightened at the insult. Klaus stood, so that he was glaring at the man over Number Five’s head, his hands still clamped on Number Five’s shoulders.

“A soft one,” the man sneered. So not only a rude, ageist, violent asshole, but a homophobic one as well. _Lovely._

“Soft,” Number Five snarled, “I’ll show him fucking soft…”

“Tsst, tsst, tsst,” Diego waved his hand behind him to gesture for Number Five to shut up. “Now you see these?” he indicated the knife hilts and sheaths attached to his belt. “These things are the very furthest thing from soft. They are real, real sharp. And now I _suggest,_ ” Diego said, smiling politely, “That you get on your way.”

The man did indeed, very wisely, get on his way.

“Shame you didn’t stab him, really,” Klaus said idly, loud enough for the retreating man to hear, before turning Number Five around by the shoulders. “Now come along, our little psycho.”

Number Five raised his eyebrow. “What happened to your ‘little darling’?”

“I don’t know,” Diego said. “He went to the future and came back as a fifty-eight year old psycho instead.”

Number Five grinned. “Or maybe I just inherited the psycho from my knife-wielding, threatening, equally-psycho dads.”

“Well,” Diego patted his shoulder, smirking. “That could also be it.”

“I need a drink,” Number Five decided.

“How terribly we have raised you.”

“Not alcohol,” Number Five rolled his eyes. “Coffee will do.”

“Well then, ok, sure,” Klaus pinched his cheek, “So long as it’s your own pocket money you’re spending, sweetie.”

*

“Sorry son,” the man behind the counter said, ten minutes later in the nearest place that looked like it sold decent coffee. “I can’t serve coffee to youngsters.”

“Oh, it’s not for me,” Number Five said, channelling as much sweet and innocent as a bitter and antisocial old man had left. “It’s for my parents.” He turned around and waved at Klaus and Diego, who were sitting in the window. They looked a little confused, but waved back. Number Five turned back to the man. “I gave them a bit of a scare earlier when I got a bit lost, so I wanted to make it up to them.” The eyes went wider, the smile pleading. “I’m paying with my pocket money and everything. So help a kid out wouldya? Please?”

The barista had clearly deemed him cute and earnest enough, because he gave in. He served him two strong black coffees. Number Five paid for them and took them back to the table.

“Finally,” Number Five declared as he sat down. “I now have found a way to get a decent coffee without questions.”

“Wait,” Diego said. “So, neither of those are for us?”

Number Five snorted. “No. Go and get your own.”

“So much for being grateful for saving your ass.”

“My ass didn’t need saving. The situation did.”

“And now you have taken advantage of it,” Klaus said, placing the back of his hand to his forehead, sounding like he was faux-devastated and long-suffering to the fact that his dear son had turned into such a rapscallion.

“Well, yeah,” Number Five said, pulling the first of the two coffees towards him. “Turns out being mistaken for your son does have some benefits after all.”

 

***

 

Number 6

 

 

Ben remembered that learning math had been a bit of a bitch.

The numbers one, two, three, four, five, six and seven were a minefield. Ben had lost count of the number of times he and his siblings had instinctively looked up when a number was said.

And even in everyday speech;

“What was that _for_?”

“It could be any _one_.”

“If you want _to_.”

“I will count to _three_.”

“Lucky number _seven_.”

People saying the time aloud was annoying for a while, and people reciting phone numbers was, naturally, a nightmare. That was until Mom had given them their own names, except Five, who would never, ever admit it, but still looked up once or twice when someone said that the time was 5pm, or that they had five minutes left to do something.

‘Six’ didn’t end up in a lot of sentences. Six rhymed with a few things though. ‘Fix’, was one that came to mind. His father had tried to fix Six of his fear of himself, of the monster that lived under his skin. He had failed. Six had tried to fix himself, once or twice; told himself not to be so afraid. He had failed too.

And just recently, he had watched his siblings debate on whether or not they could fix Ben from dying altogether; fix time.

As much as they all wanted to warn young Ben of his impending death, Number Five had said that Ben dying had been such a cataclysmic event for the Umbrella Academy – ultimately what had made them disband and leave the home of Reginald Hargreeves – that he had no idea how warning a young Ben of his death, or saving him when the time came, could affect the future. The probability was, it would have too major an impact, and saving Ben just wouldn’t be possible. But Number Five had promised to calculate, and had been working hard on doing just that.

For that, Ben was grateful. He was grateful to all his siblings for wanting him back, but, if he _was_ saved, surely the Ben that he was now would cease to exist. And he kind of liked the person he was now, even if only Klaus could see and hear him. He knew that the likelihood of them being able to warn a young him was going to be very, very slim, and even then, it might not even change anything; he might die anyway.

There was a lot that his siblings probably wanted to change, or warn their younger selves of. He was sure of that. Luther probably wanted to tell himself to not stay behind, to flee the nest with the rest, or, if he did stay, warn himself not to go on that solo mission that had ended up with him being injected with their dad’s serum. Allison probably wanted to warn her past-self about the repercussions of using her powers; of how it would impact on her life. Vanya probably wanted to burst into the house and tell her younger self that she _was_ extraordinary, _not_ extra ordinary, and that she was more than worthy of an umbrella tattoo on her wrist; that she belonged.

But they couldn’t. Number Five had said they couldn’t change anything other than what was meant to be changed; just like he couldn’t go and warn his younger self not to get himself stuck in the apocalyptic future. He probably wanted to, but he wouldn’t. Because that was not meant to be changed.

Klaus wanted to change things too; “It would be so easy just to burn that mausoleum down to the ground,” he mused. 

Klaus and Diego were currently on observation, watching the Academy building from a nearby building top, and, because Klaus was there, Ben was too.

Diego glanced at Klaus, his expression pained. “Dad hasn’t put young-you in there yet?”

Klaus shook his head, eyes wide and haunted as he looked down on their childhood home. “Not quite yet. So if I destroy it now, I’d never have to know what it was like.”

Klaus had cried about the mausoleum to Diego, once, when they had been children. But it had only been recently that Klaus had confessed to Diego that it had been multiple times; hours and hours at a time. Ben had known. And even then, hearing it again as Klaus had told Diego had shattered Ben’s heart. Diego had looked horrified and Klaus; well, Klaus had hardened to it over the years, but the trauma he had experienced was evident. Ben knew that as much as Diego woke himself up from nightmares of finding Eudora Patch’s body or watching Mom standing in the window as the house crumbled down around her all over again, Klaus still continued to have living nightmares of the dead. And although Klaus was definitely getting a better hang of his communication with the dead – Ben had been witness to that progress – he also knew that Klaus still sometimes feared those moments of screaming faces in the dark just as much as he had all those years ago in that cursed mausoleum.

“You know we can’t do that,” Diego said softly, with sympathy, and apology. “We can’t destroy it. 5 said we can’t change what isn’t meant to be changed.” He stopped. “I’m sorry, Klaus. I really am.”

“Come on,” Klaus gave him a weak smile as he nudged him encouragingly with his shoulder. “We can smash up that tank too.”

Diego froze.

“Don’t, Klaus,” Ben warned him quietly, even though Diego wasn’t going to overhear him.

“What tank?” Diego asked slowly.

“Come on, Diego,” Klaus said, frustrated, “The tank dad used to put you in to see how long you could hold your breath.”

Diego had gone positively pale, eyes wide. “H-how d-d-do you know about that?”

No-one had known about that, but Ben. And that had just been because of a case of wrong place, wrong time, and a young Diego, distressed, angry and tearful, had made him swear on his life that he would never tell the others.

“Ben told me,” Klaus said.

Diego glared over Klaus’ shoulder towards Ben; his aim at finding Ben in the empty air was becoming more and more eerily accurate. “ _Ben,_ ” Diego snapped.

“I promised on my _life,_ ” Ben stumbled over his excuse.

“He says he promised on his life,” Klaus said. “And now he’s dead,” he added, and Ben had to refrain from smacking him about the head for being insensitive.

“Fuck,” Diego dropped his head onto his arms. “D-do the others know?” he asked, the question muffled.

“Not to my knowledge,” Klaus said. “And they won’t hear it from me. I promise on _my_ life, and also on my death. Because I keep secrets better than Ben.”

“Asshole,” Ben growled, without much heat behind it.

Klaus glanced at him, shrugging apologetically. He looked back at Diego, “Why did you not tell me? Not even when I told you about the mausoleum?”

“B-because…” Diego tried to start, stuttered, stopped. “Bec-cause I didn’t…I c-couldn’t…I-I I just wanted to forget.”

“Hey,” Klaus’ hand landed on the back of Diego’s neck, “Hey, I’m sorry. I understand, ok? Dad was a bastard; buying us as babies, making us his adopted children but never giving us the time of day unless he was training us in gruelling and terrifying ways. Getting us tattooed and we didn’t get a choice...”

Ben remembered getting tattooed. He looked down at the umbrella on his wrist. He didn’t mind it now, and he liked having something that matched the others; which also made him feel guilty because Vanya had never had one. He remembered how they had all been tearful on the day they had had them done. And in pain. Diego hated needles. Ben watched Diego shudder right then at the memory; it was ironic how a man who so loved knives and sharp objects was terrified of needles. Klaus on the other hand, Klaus had gotten far, far too familiar with needles for Ben’s liking.

Klaus was still listing their dad’s sins. Because it was a long, long list; “Locking me up, locking you up and forcing Ben to unleash his powers when Ben didn’t want to. Making Vanya believe she didn’t even _have_ any powers. Using that serum on Luther and sending him to the moon for no fucking reason. Jesus, when I list it all like that it sounds even worse, hey?” he ducked his head to force Diego to make eye contact. “He was a bastard. Right?”

“Y-yeah,” Diego let out a breath. “Yeah. He was a bastard.” He looked back at the house. They stared at it in silence for a little longer.

Ben could see the thousand-yard stare starting to descend into Klaus’ eyes; whether it was memories of the mausoleum and hours in the dark with the dead, or memories of the war, and hours in the mud and blood with the dead, he was not sure. He was about to say something in the hopes that he would snap Klaus out of it, but Diego beat him to it;

“If we could,” Diego said. “I’d burn that mausoleum down with you. You know that.”

“I’d help,” Ben said.

Klaus blinked back to the present and sent them both a wavering smile. “I know,” he said, choking a little bit on the words, his hands trembling. He looked at Diego. “And I’d help you smash that tank to pieces.”

“I’d help,” Ben made sure he said again, even though Diego couldn’t hear him.

“Ben says he’d help,” Klaus added, and Ben patted him on the shoulder in thanks.

Diego nodded, unable to meet Klaus’ eyes. “And we’d stop whatever he did while training you, Ben,” Diego said.

Ben swallowed heavily, meeting Klaus’ inquisitive, expectant gaze – he had never truly divulged to Klaus what his own training had involved – and forced out “Tell him thanks.”

“He says thanks you,” Klaus said to Diego, before glancing back at Ben, “He’s right, Ben. We would if we could.”

“Nothing we can do, though,” Diego said, fists and jaw tightening in frustration. “All we have to do at the moment is _observe_.”

Ben saw Klaus’ expression change to one of decision. “Which is exactly why,” Klaus announced, leaping to his feet. “We should get out of here.”

“What?” Diego squinted up at him, lifting his hand to shield his eyes from sun. “Why?”

“Well there’s nothing going on over there, is there? Nothing but trial and torment that we can’t interfere in,” Klaus gestured to the house. “Number Five said nothing vital happens today. I think he was just giving us something to do because I was getting on his nerves and you were getting cabin-fever at base. But all we’re doing is sitting here dwelling on daddy’s less than joyous parenting skills. So let’s just go.”

“Go where?”

“I don’t know,” Klaus waved his hands around. “Anywhere! Anywhere but here. The past is our oyster!” He stopped, sly, “Of course, as Number 2 and the leader today, mon capitan, you should probably make the final call…”

Ben rolled his eyes, knowing that Diego would definitely fall for that one. The ironic thing was that although Diego had craved being the leader for so long; had been so tired of being second best – Number 2 - for so long; Ben knew without a doubt that Diego would actually despise being the leader of the Umbrella Academy if it ever came to it. Diego loved saving people, being the hero, helping. He cared a lot about his family, and about people. But sometimes a leader had to make unpopular choices; be the bad guy for the greater good. Not that Luther was correct all the time in the decisions he made, not in the least, but he was able to make tough, unpopular calls. And those were the ones that Diego always, always contested. Diego would never be able to make those calls. He would despise being a leader. It also wouldn’t give him the freedom that he was used to as a vigilante.

As it was, though, Diego was still weak to being referred to as leader - or ‘mon capitan’ as Klaus was so eloquently using to stroke his ego - and so Diego agreed with Klaus that they should go.

“Yeah,” Diego said. “Let’s get out of here.”

And so they took the car, the three of them, and they drove. Well, Diego drove; Klaus was not trusted behind the wheel and, well, Ben was dead. They drove out of the city, blaring music, singing along sometimes.

They stopped at a lookout point to watch the sun start to set. They talked about things, about dad and the past and their childhood. And about things that had taken place in the future. And, for Klaus, further back in the past.

“Dave was with you in the war, Eudora was with me in the fight,” Diego was saying, “But when the world came to an end, it was just us; family. Like it always had been, before.”

They were sitting on the hood of the car, all three of them. Ben had been pleased that Diego had made extra sure to leave enough space for him too.

“It was nice,” Ben said.

“It wasn’t so bad, being together, was it?” Klaus agreed. “Despite, you know, Vanya trying to destroy the world, and us.”

Diego snorted and elbowed him, “No. No it wasn’t so bad to be reunited. I’m just glad we get a second chance with Vanya. I was pretty terrible to her, but it was only because I…” Diego stopped; his eyes landing on a car that had deliberately slowed in the road as it neared them.

Diego slid off the bonnet, wary, watchful, and Klaus and Ben joined him a second later.

The man in the car was not familiar, but the window was scrolled right down as he slowed the car to a crawl, staring at them intently.

“Holy shit,” Ben said, “I think he’s checking you out.”

“ _What_ do you think you’re doing?” Klaus demanded incredulously of the man, crossing his arms. “ _Window shopping_?”

“Admiring the view,” the man agreed.

Klaus waved him away. “Well you just carry on…”

The man looked unconvinced. “Like you don’t know that this is a common spot.”

“A common spot for what?” Ben asked. “A common spot for…oh.”

Klaus threw up his hands. “Is nowhere sacred anymore?” he bemoaned theatrically.

“Why is this happening,” Diego said, completely and utterly deadpan and done.

“Make him move on,” Ben demanded of Klaus. “I don’t like the way he’s looking at you. Or Diego.” There was something off about that man, other than the fact he was trying to pick Klaus and Diego up off the roadside. “I don’t like the way he’s looking at you.”

Klaus let out an indignant shriek as he noticed just how the man’s eyes were roaming over them, currently gliding up and down Diego. “Don’t you ogle my brother!” he leapt in front of Diego, arms spread out as though to block him from view. “He’s not a piece of meat.”

“A piece of something sweet,” the man said.

“Oh hell no,” Diego groaned. “He surely doesn’t think…”

“He thinks you are here to be picked up,” Ben confirmed, gaping a little in disbelief.

Klaus didn’t need to relay the message. The man did that, loud and clear; “If you’re a package deal, the more the merrier, I can pay well for it…”

“Ugh!” Klaus said. “I have _literally_ just told you we’re brothers.”

The man shrugged. “Still works for me, pretty one.”

“He thinks you’re a couple of roadside prostitutes,” Ben clarified, utterly bewildered.  “That are a couple. An incestuous couple.”

He was about to demand to Klaus that they get out of there damn fast, but then he got distracted, because a figure was fading in from the dark. And Klaus wouldn’t have been listening to him anyway, because Klaus had become distracted by the figure too.

“Oh, and will being blind work for you too?” Diego was snapping at the man, drawing out one of his many knives and lifting it up so that the man could see it clearly. “Because I’m about to put this right through your goddamn eyeball if you don’t stop looking at us and move the fuck on. Right now.”

Diego could not see the figure that had emerged beside the man’s car, but Klaus and Ben could. And while Diego threatened and the man started to look like he had made a very big mistake, Klaus and Ben were hearing what the figure had to say.

“And why would we want to go with you anyway?” Klaus turned his eyes on the man, coldly, lip curling, after hearing what the figure had told him. “A murderer.” He sighed sadly. “That poor young man you strangled without consent and held on just a tad too long…”

The man visibly blanched, and looked more terrified at that than Diego threatening to stab him in the eye. He didn’t even question how Klaus knew. He just took off with a screech of wheels.

The dead young man that had joined them at the roadside was urging Klaus and Ben to stop the man from getting away. From _getting away with it_. But he needn’t have worried; Diego was already moving out into the road behind the car, taking out another knife so that he had one in each hand.

Ben did not know if his own strong feelings somehow channelled into Klaus, or if they just happened to say exactly the same thing at exactly the same time, but they both said; “Do it, Diego.”

Diego threw both knives, and they slashed the back tyres of the car, even as it retreated at speed. The tyres immediately blew out.

The only problem was, that the man then got out of the car, which had thunked with a metallic clang and come to a stop with a screeching drag, and apparently he had had a gun stowed somewhere within the car. Because now it was in his hand. And it was pointed at them.

“Time to go, time to go, yep,” Klaus announced as they all simultaneously turned and sprinted back to their car, throwing themselves in, and speeding away just as the man let off the first shot.

“So much for a relaxing, fun road trip,” Klaus groused once they were out of bullet-range, lounging back in his chair until his head rested on the seatback. “Can we not have any nice, innocent, heart-warming moments anymore without being mistaken for boyfriends, or incestuous, or prostitutes? Or without bloody apocalypses and the end of the world…I mean, it’s not much for a man to ask…”

“Please tell me that you got the licence plate of his car,” Diego said, ignoring Klaus’ rant.

“I did,” Ben said, from his spot in the backseat.

“Ben did,” Klaus said, without turning around to look at him.

“Good. Thanks Ben,” Diego took a breath, glancing in the rear view mirror to the backseat as he addressed Ben. “Klaus, call the police, give them the location, the licence number. Do we know his victim’s name? Did he tell you?”

“Tony Harris.”

“Ok,” Diego had fallen into cop, vigilante and hero mode. “Call them. Tell them to question him about the whereabouts of Tony Harris. He’ll crack. I can tell.”

Klaus made the call. And then the car fell into silence. Slightly awkward silence.

“It’s always an adventure with you two,” Ben muttered sarcastically. “The incestuous prostitute couple.”

And then he started laughing.

“No, no Beeeen,” Klaus admonished, “Don’t you start. Don’t _laugh_.”

“What the hell is he laughing about?” Diego groaned. Because he knew. Ben knew that Diego knew what he was laughing about.

“He is laughing about that man thinking we were incestuous men of the night,” Klaus confirmed.

“I mean, what the fuck,” Diego said, glancing at Klaus, and Ben could see the incredulous, dumbfounded grin starting to split his face. “How the hell did he even come to that conclusion in the first place?”

“All the leather,” Ben said, immediately. Klaus, wisely, chose not to relay that part.

“We apparently just have that…” Klaus stopped to ponder. “That kind of energy?”

To be fair a lot of people did seem to assume that Klaus and Diego were a couple. Ben had seen it many a time. Though never before as an incestuous prostitute couple. That one was new.

“The energy of incestuous men of the night?” Diego said, deadpan. “I don’t want that energy.”

“No, I don’t think it’ll work out between us either, darling,” Klaus said. “We’ll leave the pseudo-incest to Luther and Allison.”

“Ouch,” Ben tutted with a grin.

“Besides,” Klaus carried on, because he never quite knew when to stop, “Wherever I go, Ben goes too. So technically, our incestuous prostitute couple would actually be a throuple.”

“Oh no, oh no,” Ben shook his finger, and then smacked at the back of Klaus’ head. “Don’t you drag me into your weird couple-misunderstanding shenanigans.”

Klaus cackled. “Who’s laughing now, Benny?”

All of them were, apparently.

And later finding out that that man had been arrested, found guilty, and sent to prison for murdering Tony Harris? Yeah, that was sweet fucking justice. Maybe Six didn’t need fixing after all. Maybe, _maybe_ , this was the hero he was supposed to be, that he wanted to be; working behind the scenes, rather than being forced into the harsh, bloodied spotlight. He, Klaus and Diego had made a difference, had gotten a criminal caught, and potentially saved several young men from the same fate as Tony Harris. The even numbers of the Umbrella Academy had won that night, despite the ridiculous misunderstanding that had gotten them there in the first place.

 

***

 

Number 7

 

Vanya had been so used to being left out of everything to do with the Umbrella Academy - the missions, the photographs, the tattoos, the attention, the general camaraderie and games of her siblings - that she didn’t quite know what to do now that she _was_ being included.

And they all really were making an effort. They were all feeling guilty, remorseful, keen to make amends, but a little wary of her too, at first. And, now that her initial anger at their betrayals and exclusions had subsided somewhat, her own feelings had been replaced by some guilt and devastation, too. She was devastated at the destruction her powers had caused in the future, and she still felt guilty at hurting them; especially for what she had done to Allison. Vanya was also grieving; for what Leonard Peabody could have been if he had been real, for the deaths she had caused, for Mom and Pogo, for a childhood lost thinking she was useless when their father could have tried harder to help her control her powers.

The only one that didn’t have to try with her was Number Five, because Number Five was the same as ever, of course, and he and Vanya had always gotten on; asking her along when the Hargreeves kids had all snuck out for doughnuts, the conversations she and Five had had, the sandwiches she had left out for him when he had disappeared. And then when he had come back, he had missed so many years, and just picked up where he had left off, treating her no differently and coming to her when he was injured. He hadn’t given a shit about the book. That was likely why. He’d thought it was ballsy.

Allison was the most complicated one to make amends with, because ultimately, both of them had been at fault for different things. Allison had been right about Leonard – or Harold – and she had honestly only being trying to help. Vanya had almost killed her, and Allison had still tried to get Luther to let Vanya go from the container. But, Allison had also been the unknowing cause of Vanya losing memory of her powers in the first place and had decided to never mention the strange incident to her. Allison had tried to make amends too little too late after their father’s death. But, she _had_ tried. And so Vanya was trying to make amends for everything she had done to Allison, while Allison was simultaneously trying to do the same.

Luther was the one that was going to be the hardest to forgive. A leader has to make unpopular choices sometimes, that was true, but that particular unpopular choice had also been the wrong one. Tricking her and locking her up had caused the outburst of power - that she only vaguely remembered - in the first place. She could tell he was feeling terribly guilty, from the way that he looked at her and how his shoulders slumped, but she imagined that part of that was also self-berating for another failure at leadership. That was what would redeem him though really, in her eyes. Their father had fucked them all up in different ways. He had made Vanya believe she was nothing special, but had made Luther believe that he _was_ special, and vital, and a leader whose whole life revolved around the Academy; and that had done plenty of damage to Luther over the years, physically, emotionally and mentally. It was for that reason that she and Luther were making baby-steps towards forgiveness, but it would take a lot longer for her to truly trust him again.

Diego had been the one that had been most wounded by her book, and had been most cutting with her subsequently. Diego and Vanya had never really spent much time together as children, because Diego was always striving to be the best, and prove himself as worthy as Luther – again, their father’s twisted training in play - and because Vanya had been branded the least remarkable, Diego had given her little time. But for all that hard exterior, he had been closest to Mom, and had been terribly upset by some of the things Vanya had written in her book, not just about him, but their siblings and Mom as well. When Diego had told Vanya that she was liability, Vanya knew now that it was really because he was worried about her getting hurt, as much as it was about her getting in the way. Diego cared a lot more than he let on. And that was why he appeared to be trying to build bridges between them that had been weak and unsteady in the first place, and it was also why she was willing to let him try. She was trying too, because he was still haunted by her destroying Mom and Pogo and the house and she felt the weight of guilt whenever he mentioned either of them.

Klaus was a different case yet again. She and Klaus did not really know each other or had ever spent much time together. She had always liked him and found him entertaining; he had a quick and easy wit that her quieter, more awkward, personality had often envied; particularly when he had excluded her as children as much as the rest had done. But, these days she knew that Klaus was still suffering from childhood traumas caused by the things their father had done to train him to communicate with the dead. It was likely why she was making quicker progress with him than with Luther or Diego. He often had been the one that the others hadn’t taken seriously either, when making decisions, and Vanya could relate to that too. He now seemed to be trying to build a relationship with her based on light banter and companionable quiet, and also by patiently letting her communicate with Ben too. It was an easy tactic, but it was working.

Vanya was rebuilding relationships with all of her siblings, just as much as they were all still working through being reunited and working together again. But even then, they only ever seemed to be a team for the mission of editing the past to change the future; socially, they would still often break into pairs and not spend much time together as a large group. Probably because of all the disagreements and being used to living alone. But Vanya was still holding out a little hope that something would truly unite them, and make her feel as much a part of the family as they were trying to persuade her that she was.

That opportunity came about in the most bizarre of ways.

They had all being walking down the street, bickering with each other about their latest mission, and turned to cross the street, when Number Five stopped dead in the middle of the road. Luther almost collided with him but stopped at the last second, because although Luther was huge in comparison to the body of a thirteen year old, Number Five had the kind of presence that acted like a force field, and you couldn’t just _walk into that_. That, however, did not stop Vanya, Allison, Klaus and Diego from all colliding into Luther as he stopped abruptly.

“The hell, Luther?” Diego grumbled, untangling himself from the crush of siblings.

“Ask Five,” Luther said, sounding puzzled.

Vanya ducked around Luther to stand beside Number Five. “Five?” she asked, looking at him.

But Number Five was glaring down the street. They were in the middle of a road that was empty of traffic; it appeared to have been blocked off for a protest of some kind, large banners hefted over people’s heads. The march was getting closer. Without a word, Number Five’s jaw tightened, his eyes narrowed.

Vanya looked closer at the banners, and noticed that they were all homophobic, anti-gay slogans; an anti-LGBT+ protest.

“We should keep going guys,” Luther said, tone warning, begging them all not to get involved.

Klaus, however, was all ready to rise to the occasion and get himself involved. He had spotted the banners at the same time as Vanya and with a wink he was loping down the street towards them.

“Ah shit,” Diego muttered and took off after him, and the others had no choice but to follow.

“I _thought_ I recognised him,” Number Five said to Vanya as he stalked forwards and she walked beside him, feeling the building anticipation of a confrontation. Number Five was pointing towards a man at the front. “That jackass ran into me the other week and then started moaning that it was _my_ fault and that the next generation was doomed.”

“Well, we _were_ doomed,” Vanya pointed out. 'I _doomed them'_ , she thought, the guilt bubbling, before trying to push that thought away again; blow the bubbles away, don’t listen to them, don’t cause destruction from the noise.

“In the future, in the future,” Five wafted her words aside. “And we’re going to change that.” He sounded so adamant that it was reassuring.

“So what happened with that guy?” she asked, watching Klaus stroll with purpose, Diego trying to pull him to a stop, and Luther and Allison following looking wary and resigned to the inevitable confrontation; preparing for damage control, probably.

“I outwitted him and he got angry and then Klaus and Diego…” he paused, his step faltering a little as he glanced at her sheepishly, before looking back to where Klaus and Diego were leading the group. “Klaus and Diego pretended to be my parents. Shit,” and then he was running to catch up with Klaus. Vanya followed.

“Klaus, let’s go,” Number Five said sharply once they reached him.

Klaus smirked at him; there was chaotic glee in his eyes. “But where would be the fun in that?”

“Klaus, one of those guys is…” Number Five started, but he was too late.

“Wait! I know those men!” The man in question was shouting, pointing between Klaus and Diego accusingly. “Those faggots threatened me with knives! And that there,” he turned his accusing finger to Number Five, “Is their foul-mouthed bastard _son._ ”

There were cries of outrage from the protesters, at the ‘gay couple’ standing before them and at the fact that they were bringing up a child.

“Don’t point your grubby hands at me you giant piece of shit,” Number Five snapped at him.

Slurs were being shouted by the time that Luther and Allison reached them, and Klaus and Number Five were shouting back. Diego had stopped trying to defuse the situation and looked ready to fuse it right the fuck up. And Vanya was trying to ignore the throbbing, ugly shouts of the crowd and the way that it was making her want to turn it against them and _destroy_ them; particularly when such derogatory language was being thrown at her brothers, for the relationship that they had faked to help Number Five. But especially for Klaus, who was genuinely LGBT, and had loved a man and dated several others. It made _Vanya_ angry, because she had been attracted to women, before, despite not ever acting on it.

Her siblings must all have been feeling it, that fierce protectiveness of each other, because The Umbrella Academy all stood in a line in front of those protesters, before the Umbrella Academy had ever been revealed to the world, and were united truly, all seven - because she had no doubt that Ben was standing with them too - for the first time.

There were shouts about sin, and about the fact that Klaus and Diego couldn’t be Five’s true parents and they couldn’t even get married, so how could they ever be a true family without marriage and both without parental rights etc. etc.

“You just wait!” Number Five snapped. His voice was so cutting it sliced right through the crowd every time he spoke. “Give it less than twenty years and gay marriage will be legal!”

“Never!” someone screamed at them.

“Yes it fucking will,” Klaus shouted back, spinning around and pulling Diego with him with intention written clear in his face. “And then I can make my partner my husband!”

“Don’t you dare…” Vanya heard Diego mutter, a second before Klaus swept Diego into a semi-dip and planted a kiss on him in front of the huge crowd.

“So fuck you!” Klaus added afterwards, for good measure, Diego glaring at him with crossed-eyes due to the close proximity.

The crowd, naturally, went berserk and started surging forwards with their hateful signs and their hateful anger.

And Vanya shut her eyes tight and covered her ears because the loud pulsing hate and anger was _too much._ She could hear slurs and screams and spitting and snarling and sirens in the near distance. Things were building and…shaking? It was definitely starting to rain.

“Vanya, stop,” Luther called gently, before demanding of the others, “We’ve had our say, it’s time to go.” And the next thing Vanya knew, she was being swept up into Luther’s arms. She didn’t protest. She just needed to be quiet and calm and less angry and Luther was getting her out of there. Luther’s strong, thick chest blocked out a little bit of the direct volume of the crowd as he turned.

She cracked her eyes open to see Allison dragging Number Five away, who was still spitting curses and jabbing his finger at the crowd, calling them all stupid fucking bullshit backwards infantile homophobic bigots.

She also saw and heard Klaus shouting at them; “This group supports the gays and the bisexuals and the troops…” at which point Diego managed to wrestle him into a fireman’s lift and started carrying him away, but Klaus was still shouting; “…and the cops and the dead and also pseudo-incest! But only if you’re adopted but brought up more as classmates than siblings!” dangling over Diego’s shoulder as he was, Klaus turned to Luther with a quiet, pleasant side-note, “See? I have your back, Luther, Allison.” And Vanya heard Luther clear his throat with awkward embarrassment as Klaus finished his speech loudly to the crowd; “And if you don’t like it, you can piss off!”

They made it a street over before Allison decided it was safe to release Number Five, who was still visibly fuming and probably plotting bloody revenge, but Luther and Diego did not put down Klaus or Vanya.

“How come Vanya gets carried off bridal-style?” Klaus was complaining to Diego.

“Because Luther’s stronger than me and Vanya is much, much lighter than you,” Diego groused, sounding tired.

“Some future husband you are,” Klaus grumbled, as Diego stopped to unceremoniously put him down. “How was that for teamwork, huh?” Klaus enthused as they all carried on putting distance between them and the angry mob. “We showed them huh? Yey gang!”

A little later on, when the Umbrella Academy were safely back at base and significantly calmer, Klaus asked, sounding genuinely perplexed; “But why _do_ people keep misunderstanding and believing that Diego and I are a couple? Why does it keep happening?”

“By this point?” Diego replied sarcastically, “ _Probably_ because we have pretended to be a couple for several missions, or as Number Five’s parents whenever he wants to buy himself a coffee. Because people have seen me accidentally propose to you and _you_? You just declared that you were going to marry me and kissed me in front of an _entire_ anti-gay protest. Ring any bells? So I don't know Klaus, you tell me; do you reckon that _any_ of those reasons could _possibly_ be why?”

Klaus cocked his head, thoughtfully, leaning back in his chair, “Well, yeah, when you put it like _that_ ,” he agreed, considering. “Maybe you have something there sweet pea. Maybe that _could_ be it. Maybe.”

Diego sighed, clearly well-resigned to his fate. And Vanya, for the first time in what felt like a long time, laughed.


	3. ...and yet another seven.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I went away to write this chapter (because I have no self-control and decided to write one final chapter) and when I returned I found that this fic had gotten over 4600 kudos and over 1000 bookmarks!! I honestly can’t believe it guys, thank you so much for reading and for your comments. And in thanks, the third and final (for real this time) chapter is as long as the first two chapters PUT TOGETHER. You heard me. And I’m sorry, but these scenarios are just getting crazier. Much love to you all and I apologise in advance and I really hope you enjoy the madness!

Melanie at the Motel

  
“Hello.”

Melanie looked up from her crossword puzzle to see six people waiting at the motel reception desk. She blinked. It was possibly the most motley crew of people to ever stand before her at that motel desk, and by god, had she seen some extraordinary guests in her time.

There was a tall, big man standing at the back; his head looked too small for his shoulders; his torso was almost unnaturally broad and hidden away by a large overcoat. He was standing beside a woman with curly hair and a great taste in smart-casual fashion; she didn’t look the motel type. Slightly in front of them was a man with dark hair that was dissected above one ear by a long white scar and wore a harness over his skin-tight outfit and were those _knife hilts_? There was a petite woman with dark hair and a pale face who didn’t seem keen to look her in the eye, and a schoolboy who had an expression of utter exasperation; an expression as such she had never seen on anyone younger than a bill-paying adult. The one who had said hello, standing front and centre, with a wide and slightly deranged smile, was lean and wearing make-up. On their own, individually, maybe they would not have come across as such a strange bunch. But they had definitely entered all together, all looking weary and dusty and bruised. And they looked like the most unlikely company of people she had ever encountered.

“Would you happen to have any rooms available in this fine establishment?” the man in the make-up asked.

She raised her eyebrow. _Fine_ establishment? What kind of establishment was this guy used to?

Her eyes drifted back to the others. They all looked back. For a group of people who looked absolutely nothing alike, she could not help but think that they all had eerily similar stares.

“We do have a small number left,” she told the man in the make-up. “Though I’m not sure quite what types of room we have left available…”

“If you could check that for us, that would be great.”

“Of course. How many nights?”

There was a series of glancing and raised eyebrows. “Three,” the schoolboy said, for some reason speaking for the group. “Three will be more than enough.”

“Ok, sure,” she agreed slowly. None of the others seemed the least phased by the boy speaking for them, despite being - what - well over a decade younger than them? “Let me check…” she reached out to grab the bookings file, and began scanning through the list.

While her attention was elsewhere, the group began bickering quietly amongst themselves:

“This is as good a place as any…”

“I’m sorry, did you just say this place was _good_? Fine establishment my _ass_.”

“I don’t give a shit. Anywhere is better than the goddamn apocalypse, alright.” A throat cleared. “Metaphorically speaking, obviously.”

“I just want a shower and some sleep. And I don’t care where.”

“It looks nicer than your old place anyway Diego…”

“Shut your damn mouth before I shut it for you.”

“Guys, come on, can’t we just…”

“Oh don’t you start…”

Melanie looked back up from her list. None of the six people were looking at her anymore. They were all too busy glaring at each other.

“Excuse me?” Melanie attempted.

Immediately they all stopped arguing and turned simultaneously to look at her again, all of them smiling those polite smiles that she reckoned they thought were charming.  The only one that pulled it off was the taller woman.

“I have three rooms available for three nights.”

“Perfect, we can double up!” The man in the make-up said cheerfully. “Three truly _is_ a lucky number. Eh, Allison?”

“We have a twin bedroom…” Melanie held up a key.

“Taken,” the schoolboy reached forwards and plucked it from her grasp. “My brother…” he waved behind him at the huge man. “Will sort out the booking and payment.” He turned back towards the group. “Vanya, you are the only sibling I am tolerating today. Want to share?”

The smaller woman – Vanya – nodded. “Sure,” she said. “I call shotgun on first shower.”

He sighed heavily, but did not actually seem too upset about it. “Fine. Let’s go.” And off they went.

Melanie was always intrigued by the mysteries of her guests, she enjoyed puzzling out if they were couples, just friends, or families. She liked a good puzzle just liked she liked a good crossword. And this group presented more of a challenge. But now she knew that at least three of this group were siblings. She wouldn’t have guessed that. They all looked nothing alike. The big guy, the kid and the smaller woman were all related, though, apparently. Huh. She regarded the others. They could all have been siblings, really, if they were all adopted or something. But somehow she didn’t read it quite like that.

Melanie had seen all manner of people pass through the motel; many who came to her desk and pretended that they weren’t a couple, or weren’t interested in each other, or weren’t just using the room as a private place to get it on, so many that she had gotten really good at reading people.

Big Bod and the taller woman, they were a thing. She could tell. Just by the way they stood with their arms pressed together.

“I have a king bed…” she started, wondering if her theory would be proved correct.

Right on cue, Big Bod started shuffling and then said, “I guess we could take it, right Allison? I assume you guys will want to bunk together?” he asked the two remaining young men.

“Always,” the man in the make-up hooked his arm around the other’s neck, “You two go for it! Share away! Diego and I are _more_ than fine sharing, aren’t we dearest?”

There was hint in his tone, and even as the other man – Diego – grumbled, he did not actually fight the other’s hold on him. Which made Melanie wonder…if Big Bod and fashionable lady – Allison – were a couple, did that mean that the remaining two men, Diego and Make-Up, were also a thing? It was more than possible.

Big Bod shifted some more. “Allison?” he asked.

Allison just shrugged and smiled at him, fond but exasperated. “Sure,” she said, her voice had a slight rasp to it, like she had a sore throat. Melanie glanced at the woman’s neck and noted that she was wearing a thick choker necklace. “Let’s share.”

Big Bod then made his way towards Melanie’s desk, accidentally knocking Make-Up and Diego sideways with his huge arm on the way there, causing Make-Up to squawk and lose his grip on Diego.

“Can you book these three rooms under the name ‘Hargreeves’, please?” he asked, “I think this will cover it?” He placed a small pile of notes on the desk.

Melanie picked up the bills and flicked through them clinically. She nodded. “That’ll cover it.” She handed Big Bod the key to the room.

“Good job Luther,” Diego said, sounding proud, “You can count after all.”

Big Bod - Luther - gave Diego a half-hearted punch in the arm, but he was a big guy, and that punch still sent Diego staggering.

“Remember to watch your strength there big guy…” Make-Up tutted while manhandling Diego upright again, his hands patting Diego down as though brushing him off until Diego shrugged him off.

After Luther and Allison had gone, Melanie found herself being patiently-waited-at by Make-Up and Diego.

She had no idea if these two were a couple or not, but did not want to presume, just in case.

“Two queens?” she guessed.

“How did you guess?” Make-Up grinned at her. “Well,” he slung his arm around Diego. “More like one queen, if we’re being honest.”

Did he mean that one of them was gay? Or that they would be happy sharing one queen bed? Either way, she checked her list. And frowned; seeing crossed out lines and arrows pointing from one booking to another.

“Damn it,” she looked up at them, “Sorry guys, I thought there was a room with two queens left, but looks like there was a last-minute change of rooms during the shift before mine. There’s only a king room left.”

“At this point,” Diego said, and it did not seem to be directed at her. “I’m not even surprised.” He looked at her, then. “Just tell me there’s a couch.”

“Sure,” she said. “Is that all ok for you guys?”

“A king instead of two queens? We’re going to be living like royalty regardless,” Make-Up gushed. “Thanks so much for your help.” He took the key from her.

As they were heading out of the reception, she overheard Make-Up saying, “Now Diego, the couch? Honestly. None of that. This is prime snuggling opportunity.”

“ _Klaus_ ,” Diego protested quietly, “Behave,” and Melanie saw him glance back at her awkwardly.

Make-Up – Klaus – just smiled at him with goofy, teasing fondness, as they continued out the door, “Oh darling, where would be the fun in that?”

Melanie was left alone behind the motel desk, still totally uncertain whether those two young men were 100% platonic or 100% banging each other, because, somehow, completely ridiculously, it was going to be one or the other, and nothing in the middle. Everything they said was contradictory; it was either banter, or bold honesty. Either way, the entire Hargreeves motley crew were going to be staying for three days. She had plenty of time to observe and figure it out.

She went back to her crossword.

***

“I swear you enjoy this too much,” Diego complained as he threw his bag on the couch that was going to be his bed for the next three days, because Klaus would never give up the bed. Klaus would rather share the bed than give it up. Diego knew that for a fact. So Diego, to avoid sleeping with what would inevitably be koala-Klaus, was on the couch.

“Oh come on Diego, you know it’s funny,” Klaus flopped back on the bed and gave a deep sigh. “This is actually quite comfortable. Yes, this is nice.”

“Yeah, well,” Diego grumbled as he pulled some fresh clothes out of his bag. “Enjoy it.”

“Room for two, my man,” Klaus countered, patting the spare space on the mattress beside him. He then squinted out of one eye to the other side of the room. “Three, if we count Ben.”

“We aren’t counting Ben,” Diego said, before looking to where he assumed Ben would be. “No offence, Ben. But I’m assuming you don’t sleep.”

“He says you assume correctly,” Klaus responded, his role of mediator was coming to him all too naturally by that point, “Also you are getting uncannily good at knowing where he is. We’re both very proud of you, Diego.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Diego rolled his eyes. “If you get the bed, I get first shower.”

“Deal,” Klaus murmured, eyes already closing sleepily.

***

Melanie looked up from her crossword of the day at the sound of squabbling. The Hargreeves’ were back for the evening, then.

“Don’t make me send you to your room young man!” Klaus was scolding the schoolboy, even as he and Diego trailed at his heels, like the kid was in charge.

“I am perfectly capable of sending myself. I’m done with the lot of you today.”

“That’s it young man! You are grounded! Go to your room.”

“With goddamn pleasure. I’ll see you assholes in the morning.”

“You love us really, Five!” Klaus called after the kid. Who was called… _Five?_

“Unfortunately,” the kid replied as he walked off towards his room.

“Aww,” Klaus gushed. “He loves us, Diego.”

Melanie could see that Klaus had turned to Diego, up in his space and looking at him fondly, as he seemed to do fairly regularly, from what Melanie had seen of them.

“Don’t drag me into this, Klaus.”

“But…”

“Don’t test me. I _will_ make you sleep on the couch…”

It sounded just like a lover’s spat, with one threatening the other with the couch for the night. And they had been talking to the kid like he was their…what? Their son? But the boy was sibling to Luther and Vanya? How the hell did that work? The whole Hargreeves group were a mystery.

“Don’t do that, Diego, I’ll be good. I swear it.”

That settled it. 100% banging.

“Jesus Klaus don’t, you’ll make it sound like…” Diego glanced through the open doorway and spotted Melanie listening. “Nope. Too late for that.”

No, wait. 100% platonic.

***

“So, today went well,” Ben said sarcastically, perching himself on the table in their little motel room.

“I would say that sarcasm doesn’t suit you, sweet Six, but it really does,” Klaus mused, slumping down on the couch. “Curse you and your ability to be so effortlessly sarcastic.”

Ben rolled his eyes.

“At least we will be out of here the day after tomorrow,” Klaus draped a damp towel over his forehead and laid back on the couch with it half over his eyes. “Thank Christ for small mercies.”

“I never thought I’d hear you complain about a trip out with the family.”

“It’s not a trip though is it?” Klaus complained. “It’s a mission. I’d rather be on holiday with the family. Or back at base with the family. We all would. It’s why everyone’s so,” Klaus waved his hand idly over his head. “Highly strung. Hence Diego ‘going for a walk’. Such a vigilante thing to do, to walk around and brood and angst in the night, I swear.”

“He had a hard day,” Ben said.

“I know.”

“He’ll be pissed at you taking up his couch.”

“Not if he gets the bed.”

Ben leant back triumphantly, lifted his eyebrows, crossed his arms. “You’re a real sweetheart when you want to be Klaus.”

“You always sound so surprised,” Klaus complained. 

And Klaus did do crazy and surprising things a lot; the man was currently sprawled over a motel room couch with a wet towel over his eyes, inevitably smearing his eye make-up to panda-smudges. But he never surprised Ben by being kind. Klaus was a kind person.

“You know that’s not true,” Ben scolded.

“Yeah,” Klaus confessed on a murmur. “I know.”

Ben waited for Diego to get back once Klaus fell asleep.

When Diego did finally return and opened the door, he immediately clocked Klaus sleeping on the couch.

“He’s a martyr, huh?” Diego said quietly.

Ben frowned and looked at him, to freeze when he realised that Diego was looking at and talking to the uncanny direction of _him_.

“Takes hits for the family,” Diego said. “Though you’d know all about that, too, huh?”

Ben blinked at him. It was the first time Diego had talked to him without Klaus awake to translate. Diego just assumed that Ben was there. It made Ben feel equal parts warm and utterly emotional.

“You do too, you know,” Ben said, voice cracking, even though Diego couldn’t see him, or hear him.

“Night Ben,” Diego told him quietly, before moving to the couch to drape a blanket over Klaus, before getting ready for bed.

***

“Morning Melanie!” Klaus called through the door to Melanie the next morning.

“Morning Mr Hargreeves,” Melanie greeted Klaus. “And Mr Hargreeves,” Melanie dared to greet Diego.

They did not correct her. Huh. They were brothers too, then. It would make sense, if the whole Hargreeves bunch were adopted siblings. _Or,_ alternatively, it was that Luther, Klaus, Vanya and the kid were siblings, and Diego and Allison were the other-halves of Klaus and Luther, which would make Diego and Klaus partners, and not brothers. The absolutely ridiculous thing was that she still just couldn’t _tell._

“You know, he made me sleep on the couch last night, Melanie,” Klaus complained. “It was not very comfortable.”

“No, well, the couches aren’t really meant to be slept on, Mr Hargreeves. The beds are.”

“Well that has been tried and tested too. Much comfier. Diego agrees.”

100% banging.

“Diego does not agree,” Diego countered. “Diego is back on the couch tonight.”

100% platonic.

“I doubt that, sweetheart.”

100% who the fuck knows.

***

Klaus woke abruptly, gasping and clawing at the duvet.

“Klaus,” Ben’s voice was urgent, off to one side. “You ok?”

Klaus blinked away the screaming faces that were branded beneath his eyelids.

“Klaus,” Diego said from where he had woken on the couch. “You ok?”

“You two say the same thing, like, all the time.” Klaus murmured, collapsing back onto the pillows. “Are you sure you two aren’t connected as well?”

“I wish,” Diego and Ben said. _At the same damn time._ Ben snorted a laugh.

“You are being too gosh darn cute, and you can’t even hear or see it, Diego,” Klaus complained.

“Stop deflecting,” Diego scolded. “You had a nightmare?”

“If faces of the screaming dead class as a nightmare, I am quite literally living one constantly. It’s ok. I’m used to it.”

“That is…tragically sad.”

“Well, I am a tragic person, Diego, what is a fella to do?” Klaus squeezed his eyes shut, but the faces were still there, screaming his name. “Uuuhhh shut up,” he groaned, holding the bridge of his nose between his thumb and finger. “Go away.”

“Are you saying that to them or me?” Diego asked, and Klaus felt the mattress dip as Diego climbed in next to him. Offering silent support. Like the absolute gem of a brother that he was.

“Definitely them,” Klaus scrabbled out to grab Diego and haul him in properly beside him. “Never you, Diego. You, you stay.”

Diego huffed quietly and settled. Klaus kept a hold of him.

“If you grope me, drool on me, or get a hard-on, I’m straight back on the couch.”

“None of those things, none of those things. Promise,” Klaus muttered, his lips tugging into an amused smile, grateful to Diego for lightening the mood. “Just stay. Stay.”

“Alright, I’m staying.”

Klaus reached out blindly to pat the top of his head. “Good boy.”

“You dare do that again I’m pushing you off the bed, you hear?”

Klaus ignored him, snuggling down until his forehead was pressed to Diego’s shoulder.

“Night Klaus,” Diego murmured after a good few seconds of silence. “Night Ben.”

“Night both,” Klaus mumbled back, already grateful to be falling into the heavy pull of a much more peaceful sleep.

“Night guys,” Ben spoke through the dark.

In the morning Diego woke with Klaus wrapped around him like an octopus; a tangle enough to rival all of Ben’s tentacles. To Diego’s credit, he didn’t complain. Well, not until Klaus woke with a start and knocked Diego flying off the mattress, that is.

***

“I had the _best_ night’s sleep last night Melanie, you would not _believe_ ,” Klaus’ head appeared around the reception door.

Melanie grinned, pleased to see him, and a little sad that the Hargreeves gang, mysterious as they were, were leaving that morning. “I’m glad to hear that Mr Hargreeves.”

“And to think, all it took was getting Diego to sleep with me!” Klaus said chirpily, planting the three room keys of the group onto her desk. “Thanks for the great stay, Miss Melanie!” And then the bastard was gone.

She wanted to shout after him, to call him back and just _ask him;_ banging or platonic? But it was unprofessional. And so she just had to watch the Hargreeves group push and shove each other until they were all stuffed inside the ugly mini-van they were travelling in, and drive away.

So wrapped up was she in the question of Klaus and Diego’s relationship, that it took her five minutes longer than it should have to realise that it had been _the kid_ behind the steering wheel.

*****

Hana at the High School

Hana was a student rep, so on spotting a young parent looking a little lost during the open house for prospective new students at her high school, it was her duty to volunteer help.

“Hi, can I help you?” she asked him.

“Yeah. I seem to have misplaced my…kid,” he said, looking awkwardly guilty even as he said it. He was attractive, possibly of Mexican heritage; he had dark hair, a boyishly handsome face, and a scar that made him look way too cool to be wandering around her school.

“That’s ok, I used to escape my parents all the time at events like this,” she said reasonably, “It’s cooler to be seen without the parents at a potential new school, you know?”

The man frowned a little. “I don’t know, actually. I had more of a boarding school education. And I was easily the coolest of the lot of them.” He cracked a grin. It was a very charming grin, and if Hana were not the other way inclined, she may have wanted to swoon at it a little bit.

She laughed. “What sort of school subjects is he into? What department might he have gone to look at?”

“Science; stuff to do with the state of the world and the moon…and other planets. Stuff like that. He likes math equations too, the real life-or-death kind of math. And he’s kind of an old soul, so libraries too. He missed books a lot when he…when we lived where we were before. No libraries to get new ones, so…”

“I hear that,” Hana agreed, “My last town had zero facilities for sourcing new books. I had to force my dad to take me into the city every couple of months. I can show you where the school library is if you think that’s where he’ll be. Our school has a pretty good one and…”

“Hey dyke!” a voice shouted. Hana froze, mortified, and glanced at where Cory Nixon and some of his friends were standing a short distance away, sneering at her. “I don’t think he wants one of _your lot_ to show him anywhere. I can help you out, Mister.” Cory had apparently deemed that this particular parent looked cool enough to get kudos from, and clearly assumed that this parent would also be repulsed by the idea of Hana being a lesbian. She got bullied for it a lot.

Her face fell. The young parent in front of her, though, _his_ face hardened into determination. His gaze flicked over her shoulder, and she could not help but turn to look, noting another adult in earshot, lanky and eccentrically dressed, his eyes wide and piercing as he stared at Cory and the other boys.

“No,” the young parent drew her attention back to him, but he was addressing Cory. “No I think I’m quite happy being shown around by one of _my lot_.” He looked back to the eccentrically dressed man and held out his hand. “Come on, Klaus, this kind young lady is going to show us the library and see if we can track down our Fieval.”

Hana stared, stunned, as the young parent winked at her, and his _partner_ – Klaus – sidled up to his side and linked their fingers together.

“Oh lovely,” Klaus agreed, gesturing extravagantly. “You lead the way, little Miss.”

They left Cory and his friends looking gobsmacked and speechless, and Hana had never been so grateful.

“What’s your name?” Klaus asked her as she led the way.

“Hana.”

“Nice to meet you Hana. I’m Klaus, this is Diego. You ignore those fuckwits, alright?”

The two young men were strolling beside her through the crowd and occasional stares with absolutely no fear, no apprehension, and no care at all.

“It’ll get better,” Diego told her, “In the future. People will learn.”

Hana glanced down at their linked hands, the matching tattoos of an umbrella on their wrists, and she decided there and then, that whether these two men were right about the future or not, it was her duty to make sure of it; to teach, educate, make people a little more tolerant.

***

“Where the heck have you been?” Klaus demanded of Five, when he deigned to turn back up again. They had been waiting in the school library for him for at least half an hour of Klaus’ precious time.

“Making sure the event that was supposed to happen, happened, for the future,” Number Five rolled his eyes. “Obviously. I could have done with your help, but you both wandered off. I have to do everything myself. Where did you two get to?”

“Diego was defending the LGBT+ cause, like the absolute winner he is.” Klaus could not help but look at Diego with the utmost fondness. For all his sourpuss-ness and confrontational attitude, he was in actual fact an absolute sweetheart that just could not help but join any fight for righteousness and to help people.

“Oh yeah?” Number Five asked, not sounding too interested.

“It was nothing,” Diego shrugged off Klaus’ praise. “Just made sure that one of the students stayed proud of who she is.”

Man, Diego was probably the platonic love of Klaus’ life.

“You said that aloud,” Ben told him as Number Five smirked and Diego smiled this small, put-upon but totally complimented smile. “And also I take offence that _I_ am not the platonic love of your life,” Ben added.

“You are the platonic love of my _after_ life, Benny,” Klaus informed him.

“Ben’s getting jealous huh?” Number Five said knowingly, still smirking teasingly, before his expression switched back to serious again. “Who was the student?”

“Hana…Amari? I think she said her name was?”

 Number 5 paused. His eyebrow rose. “You’re sure?”

“Yeah.”

Number Five went into the satchel he had slung over his shoulder to pull out a book. “This is how I knew of the importance of the event here today. This is one of the books I went and collected from the future for the mission.” He opened the book and slammed it onto the table. “Look at this,” He stabbed a finger at a yearbook page, for several years in the future.

The yearbook page of Hana Amari had a quote at the bottom of it that said _‘Ignore the fuckwits. It’ll get better in the future. People will learn.’_ And a small shape of an umbrella next to it.

“Was this you?” Number Five asked them, semi-accusingly, semi-impressed.

“So what if it was?” Klaus crossed his arms, feeling a little proud of Diego and himself for making such an impact on the helpful young girl that had been so rudely mocked by some of the other students.

Klaus had overheard it happen, and had been standing in pure surprise, finding himself a little hurt, thinking of some of the nasty things that had been shouted after him over the years. He had thick skin now, but once upon a time, those barbed words had stung. Diego had clearly seen that Klaus and Hana had been upset, because he had instantly stepped up to the plate. Pure soul that he was. Emotionally stunted sometimes? Sure. But super pure nonetheless.

It may have also been because Diego had been worried Klaus would get angry and start a scene and start fighting high school children as he had once fought other war veterans, and had decided to distract him. Probably for the best, really, because Klaus was not above such things if pissed off enough. Prime example; fighting other veterans.

“Because this girl,” Number Five said, “Becomes a huge and influential advocator for gay rights in the future.”

Klaus turned his head to clock eyes on Diego, who looked a little stunned. “Have I ever told you,” Klaus decided to tell him. “You are the best fake husband I have ever had?”

Number Five shoved the book back in his satchel. “Stop simpering over each other, would you? We have to get moving.”

“You, however,” Klaus turned back to Number Five, “Are the worst fake son I have ever had.”

“I’m the _only_ fake son you have ever had. Now shut up and hurry up. I don’t want to pretend to be a school kid for any longer than I have to.”

“Worst son ever,” Klaus confirmed again, grinning at Diego as they got to their feet and proceeded to follow Number Five out of the school.

“You did good today, though,” Number Five said, over his shoulder. “Even if it wasn’t for the mission. I’m proud of you both.”

“Aww,” Klaus held a hand to his heart, batting his eyelashes at Diego. “He’s _proud_ of us, Diego. We made the old man proud! I take back what I said. Best granddad-brother-son ever.”

***

Luke at the Lake

   
Of all the missions that they had done that had gone to shit, this one probably went to shit the quickest. And most dramatically.

And the most frustrating part of it was that Ben could not do much about it other than follow Klaus and watch it all unfold.

They were at a lake, one of the ones that would attract a large number of people to its sandy shores on a weekend, for picnics, sunbathing, swimming and boating. There were big fancy lake houses and summer houses and boat houses scattered all around the edges. Apparently, Reginald Hargreeves owned one of those big lake houses.

Had he ever taken them there during their childhood? No. Of course he hadn’t. Fun was reserved for half an hour on Saturdays; ‘between noon and half past noon’, as their dear father had always liked to say. He didn’t take them on _holidays._ He took them on missions. They had never been on holiday. They had never known this place even _existed._

Once they had discovered its existence, they had decided to go, for a mini-break from the mission, and to break into the house to look for answers; a standard Umbrella Academy outing, really. So typical a mission of theirs it was, that unfortunately, their time had been cut short by the crazy time-travelling soldiers that Ben had helped deal with in the Icarus Theatre, back in the future.

They had gotten separated; Luther, Diego, Allison, Five and Vanya were who the fuck knew where, and Ben and Klaus were racing down the lakeside, Ben making sure to keep at Klaus’ heels.

There was some gunfire, and the general public on the shoreline were getting panicky. The sight of Klaus running away probably didn’t help matters.

And then they heard a shout.

“Was that?” Klaus came to an abrupt halt and Ben would have slammed into Klaus if Klaus had been concentrating. As it was, Ben sidled right through him and juddered to a stop.

“Diego?” Ben finished for him.

They both turned back to look at the lake house. Diego was standing on the very edge of the decking that reached out over the lake, throwing blades.

It was such a ridiculous and impressive sight that some of the people on the lakeside around them had stopped to watch as well. It looked heroic and epically foolish from a distance; knives against men armed with firearms. But from this distance, the crowd around them couldn’t see that Diego was meeting each mark with perfect aim.

They had all sworn a pact not to reveal any of their powers to the public, because they were still in the past, their child versions not even in the public eye yet. They needed to keep a low profile, because if there was any speculation whatsoever, their past-father and past-selves would find out about it and as Number 5 had so eloquently stated; ‘that would fuck a whole lot of time-shit up.’ So that was why Ben hadn’t encouraged Klaus to unleash their powers on the gunmen like they had in the Icarus Theatre. They were supposed to be doing this without attracting attention.

Diego, with his ducking and diving and looking like a goddamn _dancer_ from a distance, had attracted enough people’s attention.

He attracted even more when one of the gunmen shot him and he teetered for a second, before toppling backwards off the decking and down several metres into the lake below.

“Oh my god!” someone exclaimed with a hysterical scream behind them.

But nobody was hysterical as Klaus.

“Diego!” Klaus screeched, hurtling towards the water, already shedding his coat.

“He can hold his breath,” Ben reassured him worriedly as he followed, knowing that Klaus had likely just flashed back to Vietnam, and Dave, and a bullet wound that Klaus couldn’t stop or fix. Diego wasn’t dead, because surely Klaus would know it, be seeing it, but dear god please let Diego not have been shot fatally; let him not be dying.

“But what if he’s unconscious?” Klaus was already wading into the lake.

That…that was also a fair point. Ben had no idea if Diego would survive underwater if he wasn’t consciously holding his breath. And if that bullet had struck anything vital…Ben splashed in after Klaus – while making no visible splash at all - and they both started swimming.

Diego had been under a long time by the time they made it to where he had disappeared. They dived downward. Under the water, and out of the sight of the public, Ben found himself being utilised by Klaus, becoming corporeal, tentacles searching to help, for once, rather than to harm. One of them curled around a person and hauled them up to the surface, before Ben and his tentacles were diminished once again. Klaus and Ben surfaced at the same time, and Klaus let out a little scream of triumph that they had successfully pulled Diego up to the surface.

Diego was awake but looking a little stunned and peaky.

“I’ve got you!” Klaus grabbed onto Diego and pulled him close. “I’ve got you.”

“You know I wasn’t drowning right?” Diego groused, his voice gurgling with water. “I can hold my breath.”

“But you’ve been shot!” Klaus protested, glancing up at the decking above but seeing no gunmen aiming at them.

“They clipped me,” he said, “Shoulder. I’m not dying.”

Ben let out a long, long, breath. Or the resemblance of breath, because, you know, dead people didn’t do things like _breathe._

“Well you could have done,” Klaus protested, eyeing the red cloud of blood that was slowly expanding in the water around them. “Let’s get you back to shore.” Diego started to protest but Klaus interrupted, “Just trust me, ok?”

Diego was looking at him, as they kicked to stay afloat, his eyes searching and clearly seeing what Ben was seeing; some genuine panic from seeing Diego get shot and fall, despite visual confirmation that Diego was going to live.

“I trust you,” Diego finally allowed.

“Good,” Klaus managed to haul Diego’s uninjured arm over his shoulder, before adding, remarkably cheerfully; “Ok, Diego, just keep swimming! And follow my lead, for once, alright?”

With great effort, and a bit of invisible help from Ben, they made it back to shore. Klaus hauled Diego into the very shallow shallows so that Diego was lying on his back, and then Klaus was leaning down to give him mouth-to-mouth.

“Excuse me what the?” Ben started at the same time that Diego growled; “ _What_ do you think you are you _doing_? Get off.”

Klaus stopped with his lips hovering over Diego’s and spoke just loud enough for both of them to hear, his hair wet and hanging into his eyes, which had dark eyeliner and makeup smudged around them, beads of it rolling down his cheeks, his expression shrewd. “They saw you underwater for _ages_ , Diego, do you want them to think you just _held your breath_ all that time? No revealing of superpowers, remember?”

“But…”

“Do you _want_ to jeopardise the whole mission?”

“He’s kind of right, Diego,” Ben added.

“Ben says I’m right.”

“Ben fucking would.”

Klaus cupped his hand near their mouths, effectively hiding both Diego’s muttering and their mouths, as he moved just close enough to look like his lips had touched Diego’s for mouth-to-mouth, before he sat back and began to mime CPR on his chest, before going back to his lips. Ben had to admit that it looked effective and the general public, who were all still standing a safe distance away, appeared to be fooled; anxious and enraptured with the commotion and drama.

“You’ve done your bit,” Diego growled after less than thirty seconds of this, as Klaus’ lips hovered over his once more. “Let me go, Klaus.”

Klaus, however, had other ideas. He pulled away from Diego and sat up. “Don’t you do this!” Klaus cried out loudly over Diego’s hissed protests. “Don’t you say your goodbyes!”

“Hang on,” Ben blinked at the familiar words. “Holy shit Klaus, are you…are you _actually_ quoting _Titanic_ right now?!”

Klaus’ face cracked into a mischievous grin.

***

Luke had been an enjoying a quiet, sun-filled afternoon by the lake with his friends. And then all hell had broken loose. The first gunshot had broken him from his sunbathe-snooze, the second had him lurching to sit upright, heart hammering.

“What was that?” Rosie had asked beside him, scrambling up with the others. “Was that…was that a gunshot?”

They had leapt to their feet around the time that they had seen a man hightailing it away from a lake house and along the lake front. Luke and his friends made to get the hell away, the people around them talking nervously, panicking, some of them already making a run for their vehicles. But then they had seen the escaping man skid to a stop, turning back to the lake house, and the man, Luke, Luke’s friends and the other remaining onlookers had watched another man get shot and fall from the lake house decking and into the lake below. They had all watched with bated breath as the previously-fleeing man changed direction, charging into the water and swimming towards his fallen friend. They watched him pull his friend up to the surface, after a worryingly long time underwater. And, despite being unsure whether to make a run for it still, they dithered and watched him swim them both back to shore.

Luke felt like he should help, but he was ashamed to admit that he found himself frozen, heart in his mouth, stuck between wanting to flee and wanting to both assist and stay well away from the men who were clearly the targets of the gunmen. His friends and the others around them were clearly of the same mind. Because they all watched the man, make-up running down his face and wet hair plastered flat to his skull and curling into his eyes, haul his injured friend into the shallows and onto his back. They were too far away to tell if the injured man was awake or not, or breathing or not. Their question was answered when the man with the running make-up started to perform CPR.

It was frantic, desperate, watching him. The injured man was clearly someone that the other cared a lot for.

And most devastating of all, was when the man with the streaming make-up went back to his chest compressions and cried out “Don’t you do this! Don’t you say your goodbyes!”

Luke’s heart ached for him in that moment. The man with the make-up looked terrified, terrified to lose someone that he clearly loved. And then, then, something totally ridiculous and incredibly romantic happened;

“Listen, Diego,” the man in the make-up vowed to the man lying before him, reaching out to cup his face in his hands. “Listen, Diego. You are going to survive this. Ok? You’re not going to die here! Not here. Not this way! Not like this! Do you understand me? You are the best thing that ever happened to me, Diego! So survive! Don’t give up! Don’t let go!”

Luke was about to choke at the raw emotion and the intensity of what he was witnessing.

Until Daisy said, “That sounds a bit like that scene from Titanic.”

“I don’t give a shit,” Rosie replied. “It’s romantic as all hell.”

Luke hadn’t seen Titanic. It had come out in the cinemas a few years ago, and there had been a lot of hype around how amazing and heart-breaking it was, how realistic the effects. It had broken records; the most expensive movie ever made; the highest grossing movie of all time. But Luke had deemed it to not be his thing, he wasn’t one to jump on the bandwagon and follow hype; and so had never gone to see it. He had never seen it, so he had to agree with Rosie. This was cheesy, sure, but it was romantic as all hell.

***

Ben could only stand back and watch with amused horror as Klaus, clearly satisfied that Diego was going to live, got carried away with his performance; “Listen, Diego. You are going to survive this. Ok? You’re not going to die here! Not here. Not this way! Not like this! Do you understand me? You are the best thing that ever happened to me, Diego! So survive! Don’t give up! Don’t let go!”

“What the fuck are you talking about Klaus?” Diego snarled between his teeth.

Ben tried to hold in his laughter. God help him, for Diego’s sake, he really tried. But he really, really failed.

“Enough. Let me go, Klaus,” Diego protested.

“I won’t let go, Diego!” Klaus sobbed, flopping half over him, clinging to him theatrically. “I’ll never let go!”

At which point, Diego reached the end of his tether. He sat up abruptly, coughing and spluttering to play the part of a man resurrected from drowning. He also definitely on purpose made sure that his head cracked into Klaus’ on the way. Ben knew it was on purpose; he saw the vengeful glint in Diego’s narrowed eyes.

“Diego!” Klaus cried out, gathering Diego up in his arms, while subtly rubbing a hand over the spot where Diego’s head had collided with his.

“I’d say I sympathise, but you kind of deserved that,” Ben told him.

Klaus smirked up at him over Diego’s shoulder, which was still steadily oozing blood.

“We need to get him fixed up,” Ben reminded Klaus.

Klaus un-gathered Diego and inspected his shoulder, reaching up to unwind the thin scarf that had miraculously stayed around Klaus’ neck. “We’ll wrap this up,” Klaus said, “Alright?”

Diego’s hard glare softened a little, and then masked over again at the pain of Klaus tightly tying the scarf around the wound.

There was a sudden sharp noise in the near distance that had Ben twisting around on high alert, but it wasn’t gunfire. Ben gawped as some of the bystanders actually started clapping, applauding Klaus on saving Diego’s life.

Ben saw the moment that Diego also noticed their audience.

“What are you all looking at?” Diego demanded of them, voice wavering a little from the pain and exhaustion; convincing enough that he could be rasping from nearly drowning. “This isn’t the goddamn Titanic!”

“Actually…” Klaus admitted easily, focused on tying the scarf. “It kind of was.”

Ben watched Diego blink, slowly, and turn back to stare at Klaus, “Excuse me?”

“I’m guessing you haven’t seen that movie?” Klaus was sounding a little sheepish now.

“No, but I know the gist of it.”

“Everything that Klaus just said was pretty much the gist of it,” Ben said.

“Erm…” Klaus pulled back, suddenly unable to meet Diego’s eyes. “I may have borrowed some of the script, for authenticity. You know?”

Diego didn’t even blink. Just said, totally deadpan, “I wish those gunmen had shot to kill.”

“No you don’t!” Klaus cried out, wrapping his arm around Diego’s neck and pulling his head forward into a protective hug. “No you don’t. You can suffer a bit of Titanic. Death is no fun, is it Ben?”

“I don’t know,” Ben said, grinning, crossing his arms over his chest, cocking his head. “It has its entertaining moments.”

Klaus hissed at him, as he did whenever he found Ben’s comments unhelpful or unsupportive. And while Diego could not hear Ben’s response, he knew Klaus’ hissing well enough now to know that Ben had disagreed.

“I should have known you’d be enjoying this Ben…” Diego groused, his voice muffled from his face being pressed into Klaus’ chest.

“Well, it was a pretty entertaining performance,” Ben reasoned.

“Ah, you are too kind, too kind,” Klaus waved his compliment aside like an actor accepting the praise of a standing ovation, before calling out to address his living lake side audience. “Thank you ladies and gentlemen! I’ll be here all week!”

Said audience had to part swiftly however, all of a sudden, as Luther thundered into view at speed, skidding to his knees beside them and panting, “We have to go, now!”

“Oh, nevermind!” Klaus called to the audience. “It was a one-time-only performance! Well, we couldn’t ask my Diego to go through that again, could we?”

Luther did not even seem fazed that Klaus and Diego had accumulated themselves an audience or that they were addressing them directly. He was busy taking in their sodden state, the streaks of mascara and eyeliner streamed down Klaus’ cheeks, the blood on Diego and his makeshift bandage.

“What happened?” Luther asked, still sounding out of breath.

“I got shot,” Diego said, managing to move far enough back from Klaus to roll his eyes. “And fell in the lake.”

“I can see that,” Luther sighed heavily.

“Then why even bother asking?”

“Don’t start, Diego,” Luther scolded distractedly, his eyes remained wide and wild, searching the distance over their heads for the gunmen. “We have to go. They are still on our tail.”

Luther reached out as though to pick Diego up, and the next thing Ben knew, Diego had a blade hovering over Luther’s wrist in warning. “What,” Diego demanded, “Do you think you are doing?”

“Carrying you back to the van,” Luther said. “Don’t argue with me.”

“Diego, come on now darling,” Klaus reprimanded. “Keeping up appearances…”

“If you say that one more fucking time…” Diego growled, but let Klaus slide the knife from his grip.

“Luther’s right,” Ben said, scanning the distant shoreline. “We have to go. I can see movement.”

“Ben says he can see them,” Klaus informed them for him. “Diego stop being a grouch and swallow your damn pride for a minute and let us help.”

“I have been swallowing plenty of my damn pride today, thank you very much, Mr mouth-to-mouth.”

Luther stared at them. “I’m not even going to ask.”

“Best not,” Klaus agreed.

Luther wasted no time in scooping Diego up into a bridal carry. Diego looked like he would rather swallow one of his own knives.

“Put me the fuck down,” Diego tried one last time.

“We have to maintain appearances,” Luther parroted Klaus, looking a little smug, already turning to stride in the direction of the van, expecting Klaus and Ben to follow. “Don’t argue.”

***

Luke and his friends had joined in the applause. Because honestly, it was possibly the best thing he had witnessed outside of a movie. He had seen the man with the running-make up save the other man’s life. It was worth praising. As soon as the drowned man gasped back to life, he had been bundled into the other’s arms and held close as they talked too quietly for them to hear.

The revived man looked startled at one point, having noticed that they were all gawping at the pair of them, and had demanded, voice raspy; “What are you all looking at? This isn’t the goddamn Titanic!”

“Actually, I’m pretty sure that his boyfriend stole, like, 60% of the ‘I’ll never let go’ part of the Titanic script,” Daisy informed Luke and Rosie.

While the drowned man seemed uncomfortable that he had been shot and drowned and brought back to life with so many witnesses, the man in the make-up appeared to be pleased about the crowd, even noting the applause and addressing them like an audience; surely giddy with relief.

His thanks to them were cut short when all their attention was taken by a huge guy rushing through the crowd towards the drowned man and his saviour. This new guy’s head looked too small for his ginormous shoulders, and was wearing a long trench coat and gloves, even in the late summer heat. Luke and the other lake bystanders all gawped as they watched the latest development; the big guy exchanging words with the two men, before scooping the drowned man up in his arms and carrying him off, away from the water, with the man with the make-up trailing behind them.

“You were amazing,” Luke informed the make-up man as he passed them. “You saved his life.” The man grinned a big, toothy grin, the black eye make-up had run so much that it was staining his top lip. “You must really love him,” Luke said.

“A Titanic amount,” the man responded, with a knowing, morbid grin as Daisy spluttered; her accusations about the scene in Titanic pretty much confirmed.

There was something crazily morbid about joking so soon after they had watched him literally give life, breath, back to his boyfriend.

“You’d better hurry,” Rosie nodded after the big guy – whoever he was – who was still striding away with the man’s boyfriend in his arms. “Don’t let him steal your man.”

“Like he could even,” the man pulled a face like the very idea was ludicrous. “I’ve given Diego the kiss of life and the heart of the…lake. I’ve painted him like one of my French girls. My heart wouldn’t go on if he left me, so, I’m never letting him go.” And then he winked at them, and then he hurried away, shouting, “Luther, you asshole! Wait up!”

They all stared after him.

***

“That guy is one massive Titanic fan,” one of the girls that had been talking to Klaus said.

“You have no idea,” Ben replied, even though they couldn’t hear him. “I despair, I really do.”

But the source of Ben’s despair, alas, was his tether to Earth and the living, and so Ben had to leave the onlookers and sprint to catch up to Klaus, Luther and Diego. He could see Number Five, Allison and Vanya already waiting impatiently by the van, before another gunshot sent them all scrambling into the vehicle, and Luther, Klaus and Ben started to run. Run much, much faster.

“You liked my performance then?” Klaus panted breathlessly to Ben.

“You overdid it.”

Klaus cackled manically as they raced towards the car. “I’m flying, Ben!” Klaus yelled with a laugh, holding out his arms. “I’m flying.”

“I fucking despair,” Ben said. “But probably not as much as Diego does.”

***

Larissa in the Library

 

Larissa’s assignment was never-ending. It felt like she had been in the library for days and days and days and the damn thing still wasn’t finished. She needed sleep. She needed coffee. One of those two. Or both. Both would also do. Her CD Walkman had played the same CD over and over so many times that she had turned it off two hours ago, and it was so quiet in the library that it was almost stifling. The silence seemed to give her more of a headache of restless irritation than the general quiet chatter that she would find in the more communal research spots. So after Larissa had escaped for a lunch break, she decided to try one of the more communal areas by the big, bulky public-use computers. She had found a nice corner by the windows, and hoped that being in an area with background chatter would be less frustrating. Instead, she had found it distracting; both the people-watching through the window to the street below, and the background conversations in the room with her. One conversation in particular, became particularly distracting.

There was a young man sitting on the other side of the desk partition to her, near one of the windows. He was currently on his Nokia phone, so she could only hear one side of the conversation, but because she was sitting so close to him, she could not help but overhear every word. The guy was sitting on his chair, phone to his ear, and looking towards the window as he did, maybe looking out, as he spoke.

He was attractive; she had seen him arrive half an hour ago, with dark hair and lined eyes, and an eccentric fashion sense that he pulled off with ease. But it was not just the man’s looks that had so fully caught her attention; it was his current conversation.

“Dave!” he had said, which had been the first thing he had said since entering the library; having previously been tapping his fingers and sniffing intermittently instead, looking bored. The phone lifted to his ear as he turned towards the window. “Oh Dave, it’s so, so nice of you to call. Gosh, I have missed you, love.”

He listened to the response.

“I’m doing research on…well, something or other. You could probably be of some help to me, here, darling, you always were the smart one.” Another pause for a reply. “Well, you are more than welcome to help me, but first, tell me how you are?”

Larissa snuck a glance at the guy. He had an expression on his face that reminded her exactly of how her parents looked at each other still, sometimes; completely and utterly smitten, that dopey smile was familiar.

“I’m glad to hear it Dave, I truly am. I wish I could see you more, but I know you have…well, other obligations, and I’m so busy these days…and I’m still trying to work on how to get you and Ben to be here at the same time so that you can meet each other properly. You never seem to be here at the same time.” A pause. “I agree. We must make the most of all the time that we get. I have missed you too. So, so much. Each and every time I see you, you know, I am just completely struck dumb by how beautiful you are…oh don’t be embarrassed, love, it’s the truth of it.” His next words were so soft, quiet, that Larissa found her breath catching at hearing the pure and utter devotion in his voice; “Just, so beautiful.” Another pause. “Well that is very kind of you to say so, love. You always did know how to flatter me.”

Larissa had never been in romantic love before. And while she wasn’t wishing for it to happen any time soon - she led a busy and full life – she couldn’t deny that she looked forward to the day that she would discover what it felt like. And if she was lucky enough to ever find anything as good as this guy had clearly found, she would be the happiest woman alive.

She tuned back into the man’s conversation.

“I love you too, Dave,” he sounded a little choked up, his voice gone soft and low and adoring. “So very, very much. Oh really? So soon,” his tone saddened a little. “Well, if you must go now…I’ll see you again very, very soon, when you come back here to help me with my research? Yes? Good. It’s a date. Goodbye for now, my darling. I love you.”

And the phone was put down, and the man turned back to the book he had open in front of him, beginning once again to grumble about its contents under his breath. It took a very short time before he sighed loudly as though bored, and swiftly gave up, sprawling over the book and the desk with his arms spread out, his cheek pressed to the wood of the table and huffing out another breath.

Larissa ducked her head back behind the partition so that he wouldn’t notice her observing, and with the distraction now gone, she had no excuse but to force herself to look back down at her notes.

It took half an hour for a brand new distraction to emerge.

“Here you are,” a voice spoke quietly through the low chatter of the research area. “I’ve been looking around this place for ages trying to find you.”

“But you are here now, darling, thank goodness!” came the response from the man that had been on the phone, and Larissa’s interest peaked again, drawing it away from her so-very-nearly complete assignment. “I am so glad you agreed to come and join me.”

Larissa couldn’t help herself and peered back over the desk partition.

The man in the make-up was lounging in his chair in front of the newcomer; a guy that looked a similar age to the other, of Latino descent, dark hair spiked and his clothing dark and form-fitting. They were looking at each other with an easy fondness. This had to be the man that the man in the make-up had been talking to so devotedly on the phone; Dave.

“Well you did call for aid,” Dave replied, “And no matter how much I may want to, I can never seem to deny a Klaus in distress.”

“And that is why I love you,” the man in the make-up – Klaus – said sincerely, standing up and patting the other’s cheek affectionately. He stretched. “And now that you’re here, I will go and grab us both a coffee. I need the walk, and lord knows we’ll need the caffeine.”

“Sure, sounds great,” Dave replied, settling himself in Klaus’ vacated chair.

Klaus raised his eyebrow at him. “I just realised…you aren’t wearing your usual…” he gestured at himself, clearly searching for a word. “Harness.”

Larissa nearly choked and had to cover her mouth to avoid from making a noise that would attract their attention.

“We are in a public space; a library, even,” Dave replied easily. “I thought it would attract too much unwanted attention. And it’s not like I’ve come without any sort of protection.”

“Oh of course not. My sweet saviour is always prepared,” Klaus winked. “I’ll just go and get us those coffees. I’ll be back before you know it.”

“Missing you already,” came Dave’s response, and Klaus acted out a dramatic swoon, before blowing him a kiss and sauntering out of the room.

Dave focused on the book on the desk before him and Larissa turned back to her assignment. She worked in silence for another half an hour, before finally, thank-christ finally, finishing the conclusion to the assignment. Satisfied that she could complete her draft edits and bibliography from the comfort of her own home, she packed up to leave.

Klaus still wasn’t back with the coffees, which meant that Dave was still sitting at the desk opposite, on his own, scanning the book before him with a critical eye.

“Excuse me,” she spoke to him softly. She could have left without saying anything, but she felt that she had to. Klaus and Dave had restored her faith in finding true love; able to speak so openly and lovingly on the phone, and yet also be so full of easy banter and affection once they had been together in the library.

Dave looked up at her expectantly. “Can I help you?”

He looked terribly cool; a long white scar running along the side of his head, and another small one dissecting his eyebrow. And he looked terribly attractive too; a different attractive to Klaus. When he and Klaus had been standing side by side, their very different appearances had complimented each other rather than clashed, and the fondness in their gazes for each other had been soft and warm.

“Sorry to disturb you, and I am sorry for eavesdropping, but I could not help but overhear your phone conversation with your boyfriend earlier. I just wanted to say that it was wonderfully romantic, and it really restored my faith in love and relationships. If I had someone that loved me that much, well, I’d consider myself a very lucky woman indeed.” She smiled at him.

He blinked, looking a little stunned, possibly surprised about having been overheard and then spoken to about it. “Thank you,” he replied, after a moment.

 “No thank _you_ , Dave. And you are very lucky to have a man like Klaus; he clearly adores you.”

Dave’s expression seemed to clear at her addressing him by name, and he sat a little straighter, face serious as he nodded. “Klaus is…he’s loved,” Dave agreed, before glancing towards the window; uncannily the place that Klaus had been looking when speaking to Dave on the phone. “Very much.”

She smiled at him again, a warm glow in her chest. “Have a great day, Dave,” she said sincerely, and then turned towards the library exit.

The sun was still shining as Larissa stepped out into the street, and with her assignment draft finished, her faith in love restored and sunshine still left in the day, she headed home in high spirits.

***

Not long after the college student had called Diego ‘Dave’ and thanked him and Klaus for restoring her faith in romance, Klaus returned with the coffees in take-out cups.

“I’m sorry I took so long, Diego my dear, they had run out of cups and it took me ages to find someone to help, and then it took _her_ ages to track some down in the storeroom, and yes, I _could_ have just gone out and found the nearest Starbucks, but I couldn’t be bothered, quite frankly, and the coffee machine here is much cheaper and since we aren’t as fussy about our coffee as a certain bitter old-young person…”

“Hey Klaus?” Diego asked, effectively interrupting his explanation.

“Yes?” Klaus responded, placing Diego’s coffee down beside him and pulling up another chair to sit beside him.

“Have you by any chance been pretending to be on the phone while talking to Dave in public again?”

Klaus cocked his head to one side, looking surprised. “Yes? How did you know?”

“The girl that was sitting opposite you just left, after telling ‘Dave’ – me – that she overheard your phone conversation with me, that it was all very romantic, that we have restored her faith in love, and that I was a very lucky man to have you.”

Klaus didn’t even bat an eyelid; not the least bit fazed at having been overheard. He grinned, “Well you are a lucky man to have me in your life. So I do hope that you agreed and said nice things about me.”

“I was truthful,” Diego said. “I said you were a pain in my ass.”

That wasn’t true, of course, and Klaus looked like he knew it too.

“Oh, she will have gotten a lovely mental image from that, Diego. You did very well.”

Diego rolled his eyes heavenward. “Lord, you test me,” he muttered, before stalling, his throat stuttering to a halt as he spoke words that he had so often heard spoken by Eudora, in fond exasperation of him, and their version of love. He cleared his throat, and changed topic. “Look, I know it’s always a pleasure to see Dave but – is he still here?”

Klaus shook his head forlornly, but then abruptly turned around as though he had heard something behind him, and his face split into a warm grin; suddenly and obviously absolutely delighted when his eyes fixed on an invisible-someone behind him. “He is!” Klaus exclaimed, thrilled. “Hello again, my love!” He glanced at Diego. “He’s laughing about the misunderstanding.”

“Why does that not surprise me?” Diego grumbled. Klaus and Dave, he was coming to learn, had very similar senses of humour. He looked at where Klaus was looking. “Hey Dave,” he added. “Nice to– well, not _see_ you but – to know you’re here, bro.”

“Dave says you’re cute,” Klaus replies, eyes gleaming mischievously.

“Well thanks, Dave, but what I was _going_ to ask, is if you two would mind _not_ engaging in your declarations of love ‘over the phone’ right before I’m about to arrive, having also been summoned by phone? As you can clearly see, it can give off the wrong impression.”

“Or the right impression,” Klaus teased with a wink, but at Diego’s unchanging expression, he sighed. “If we can’t talk ‘on the phone’, where and how else would we be able to chat?”

“Oh I don’t know, in private?”

Klaus scoffed. “We do that too, but the dead aren’t to be kept on a _schedule_ Diego. Dave can only show up when he’s able, or I’m able, and sometimes that requires talking to him in public.”

Diego frowned, that old familiar feeling of guilt welling up. “Well now you’ve just made me feel selfish.”

“And so you should.” Klaus smirked towards Dave and nodded in a faux-thoughtful, totally-devious way. “Well, I quite agree, Dave. I quite agree.”

Diego sighed and picked the coffee up. “Can you both stop ganging up on me already? Come on, Dave, bro, help me out here, at least.”

“If it’s any consolation, he says that if anybody had to be mistaken for him, he would want it to be you,” Klaus cocked his head. “For some reason, he thinks you’re cool.”

“Like you don’t,” Diego scoffed. And the guilt bubbled away once more. He sighed, surrendering and finally admitting, “Well tell Dave that it’s an honour to have been mistaken for him, because I think he’s cool too.”

“Yeah,” Klaus smiled, reaching over to pat his hand fondly, “We know. Just like we all know that you both think I’m the coolest of all.”

Diego scoffed and Klaus suddenly grinned, looking delighted.

“Let me guess,” Diego said, “Dave just reacted the same way as me?”

Klaus nodded and smirked. “No wonder people confuse you for each other.”

 

***

Noah at the Nightclub

“How has it come to this?”

“You know how; for the same reasons that you and I have been designated as Five’s fake parents; the only other choice is Luther and,” Klaus scoffed, “Well, I told you all about the one and only time he ended up in a nightclub. It was a hairy nightmare. For a bit. And then just a sepia nightmare. You know, when I died for a little bit and saw Daddy dearest in the barbershop?”

Diego grumbled, very much not amused with the reminder of Klaus’ brief death experience. “No, I get that bit; you are the best choice to track down our mark in a gay club…”

Klaus chuckled for the fifth time that day since learning that their ‘mark’ was actually called Mark. A ‘mark’ called Mark. Hilarious. Particularly when Diego kept saying ‘our mark’ like he was particularly fond of their target. That was, until Diego frowned at him seriously for the fifth time that day and Klaus abruptly stopped chortling; though, having done that, Klaus reckoned that since he _was_ the best choice to track down said mark called Mark in the gay club, he could laugh about it as much as he liked.

In fact, that he was the best choice to track down said mark called Mark was actually an understatement, really. Klaus was the perfect choice. He had the look, the attitude, the _je ne sais quoi_ to pull off this mission with all the flamboyant, seductive gusto required. And, of course, he was actually gay, which was a pretty big benefit to blending in. Speaking of blending…Klaus smoothed out a contour line. He had also been the prime candidate because Five looked underage, Vanya wouldn’t do well with the noise, Luther would not pull off a tank top and Allison was on another mission, but whatever. The point was, Klaus was the best choice. But that being said; he wasn’t the only choice…

“…but don’t you think you would be better off doing this job on your own? Do you really need me with you? And is all this really necessary?”

“Of course it is. I thought you were the almost-cop here, Diego. You’re going in _disguise._ You’ve done it plenty of times, going under guise.”

“It’s _called_ undercover, asshole.”

“Undercover, guise, whatever. It’s still a disguise. I mean, you’re wearing make-up, right?”

There was a heavy, long, irritated pause. “Yes.”

And so he was indeed. Diego was sitting very still, frozen, seemingly half-stunned that he was even allowing this to happen at all and half-fearful of being poked in the eye with a mascara brush, as Klaus carefully applied make-up to his face. Klaus had to admit, he was damn good at doing other peoples’ make-up. Diego was starting to look very unlike his usual self. Except for the scowl. That was exactly the same.

“Then it’s a disguise,” Klaus shrugged, unaffected, the movement sending the mascara brush dangerously close to Diego’s eye, and he flinched back.

“Careful!”

Klaus just rolled his eyes. “I’m an expert at this, ok? Just let me finish it. I’m nearly done.”

“Alright, alright,” Diego hissed. “But I still don’t see why it’s necessary.”

Klaus sighed heavily, “Because I’m the best person for the job but I need backup, ok? The last time I was in a club was that time with Luther and I ended up this close,” he held up his fingers, with a teeny tiny gap between them, “To popping a pill. We all know you are the only one other than Ben who can talk sense into me most of the time. So I need you to do what you’re best at mein  bruder; being the protector, watching my back.”

“You were still in withdrawal last time. You’re clean now. I think you are stronger than you think you are.” Diego was watching him with focused attention, or maybe he was watching the proximity of the mascara brush from his eye; Klaus couldn’t tell.

“That is kind of you to say, but the atmosphere won’t help. I need you to just keep me on track, alright?” Klaus screwed the top back on the mascara. “Besides, Luther is insistent on back-up because he feels bad about what happened to me last time.”

“Fine,” Diego agreed, begrudging, “Though I don’t buy the line about me being able to talk sense into you. You never listen to me.”

Klaus ignored him and rummaged in his bag of make-up products.

“And is the make-up really necessary?”

“Not really,” Klaus finally admitted, only now he was nearly done, slyly triumphant, “But I wanted to put some on you. I vowed that I would one day, didn’t I?”

Diego’s most venomous glare was aimed at him, but Klaus was well immune.

“You mean I didn’t have to go through all this?!” Diego hissed, “I told you…” he started, before he was forced to close his mouth as Klaus went right ahead and put gloss on his lips.

“You did tell me, but as you say, I never listen to you,” Klaus grinned. “And I’ve finished it now. It’d be a shame to take all of it off. It suits you.”

Diego snatched the hand mirror on the table and held it at arm’s length as though the reflection might hurt him. He glanced at himself, and then blinked and stared. “No fucking way…”

“I told you it looked good!” Klaus insisted, pleased with the result.

Diego was inspecting his face. It wasn’t like Klaus had done too much; his face was subtly contoured, the angles accented, mascara lengthening his lashes, liner darkening his eyes, a shine to his lips. He was unfairly pulling off the look Klaus had taken months to achieve on himself; that balance between pretty and handsome. God damn Diego and his good genes…whichever impromptu-mother’s good genes they were.

“Well, it _is_ a good disguise,” Diego finally admitted, begrudging and slow. “But you are _not_ going to dress me…”

“That’s fine,” Klaus dismissed, and then added to himself, as Diego stalked off, pretending to be mad and not checking himself out in every reflective surface he passed, “I think your wardrobe will be suitable enough for a gay club anyway.”

“What was that?” Diego demanded, spinning on his heel.

“Nothing!”

“How the hell did you manage to get away with putting make-up on him?” Ben asked, amazed, from where he was perched on the table beside where Klaus had been applying Diego’s make-up.

“Ye of little faith.” Klaus cocked his head, regarding his own reflection and starting on his own make-up.

“Like you weren’t a little worried he might stab you with that mascara brush. Or, you know, a knife.”

“We must take risks in fashion.”

“‘Fashion risks’ refers to not being afraid to be a little bold and different, not the threat of bodily harm.”

“Tomayto, tomahto,” Klaus waved his statement aside. “Now stop distracting me, I need to get ready.”

***

Noah clocked them as soon as they walked in. He had been leaning against the bar, his friends Josh, Leanne and Amy on either side of him, drinks in their hands. It was Josh and Amy’s heads that had turned first, and at Amy’s exclamation of ‘ _damn_ ’, that Noah followed their gaze.

Two men had just entered. They had to be in their late twenties, early thirties at the most. The pale one with curly dark hair was wearing platform boots which made him a little taller than the other, who’s black hair was spiked and styled. Both had sculpted facial hair and both were wearing hints of make-up; their eyes darkened and their cheekbones sharp in the glare of the nightclub lights. The one with the curly hair was wearing a colourful tank top and skinny leather pants with corset-laced sides. The other was also wearing tight leather-look pants and an equally tight V-neck black t-shirt. They looked damn good, and they strode into the club like two men on a mission.

A mission that many men in that room would want to be a part of. And women too.

“Do you reckon they are single or together?” Leanne pondered loudly.

Noah cocked his head, observing. It was hard to tell. They weren’t walking particularly close, not holding hands, eyes already scanning the room. So maybe not.

“I can’t tell,” he called back over the music. “Maybe they’re just friends?”

“They look like they’re looking for someone,” Josh agreed.

“Or _someones_ , please Christ almighty. Do you reckon one of them might be bi?” Amy asked hopefully.

“Only one way to find out,” Noah said. “Go and talk to them.”

Amy suddenly looked nervous, dithering as Josh and Leanne laughed at her expression.

“Oh shut up,” Amy grumbled into her drink.

“You’d better hurry up Amy,” Noah warned jovially, “Someone might get there first.”

“ _You_ might, you mean,” Leanne teased.

“Well, yeah,” Noah shrugged. “Would you blame me?”

All three of them shook their heads.

***

“No sign of him yet, then,” Klaus commented after he and Diego had done a full sweep of the club to make sure that their mark called Mark hadn’t arrived yet. He glanced at Diego. “Oh, don’t look so pained Diego. We’re in a club!” He regarded his brother; the tenseness of his shoulders, the way he was eyeing everyone with apprehension, shifting almost imperceptibly. “When was the last time you were in a club?”

Diego actually had to pause, his lips parting as he frowned, considering. “A while,” he ended lamely. “When Eudora and I were still…” he trailed off miserably.

And that just would not do.

“Well we can’t just stand here and wait.”

Diego looked at him blankly. “Well what else are we supposed to do?”

“Well we made all this effort to look delectable and it’s not like we’re dressed to the nines with nowhere to go. We’re here now! Let’s…I don’t know,” Klaus waved his arms around. “Get a drink!”

Diego raised an eyebrow at him. A beautifully defined eyebrow; Klaus was not letting this look go to waste so soon.

“No to drinking,” Ben advised, ever the little angel by Klaus’ shoulder.

“Ah, yes, right,” Klaus conceded. “I’m not drinking anymore, and your body is a temple…”

“Too right it is,” Diego said, but then shifted a little uncomfortably, clearly knowing quite how much attention said body had attracted since they had arrived.

They had attracted a lot of attention. Klaus wasn’t blind; he’d seen the eyeing and the turned heads. If they hadn’t been on a mission for the good of the future he might have preened and basked in it all a little more. But they were, and he needed to keep them occupied until their target – their Marky mark - arrived.

“Ok, then let’s dance!” Klaus decided.

“Yes to dancing,” Ben agreed.

Diego balked. “No. No way.”

“Come on Diego! Dance with me!” Klaus demanded, sing-songed with a good old dose of drama. He held out his hand. “Dance with me, like it’s our last chance!”

“I am _not_ dancing.”

“Why the hell not? We’re going to look weird if we just stand here with no drinks and not dancing. Diego, do you _want_ to scupper our undercover operation?” It was Klaus’ turn to raise his eyebrows, waiting expectantly for the inevitable; Diego never backed down from a mission. Or, indeed, a challenge; “Or are you ashamed because you know my dancing skills are far better than yours?”

“That’s done it,” Ben confirmed smugly, even before Diego’s face set with determination as expected and he grabbed Klaus’ wrist and lead him towards the dance floor.

“I’ll show you dancing skills,” Diego told him.

Klaus let himself be led, triumphant. And prepared himself to bust a true groove.

Klaus had two favoured styles of dancing: the first, fluid and relaxed; swaying, twirling, arms and hands moving, eyes often closed as he got lost in the music; the second, much more energetic, raving, bounding, arms swinging, head rolling. Sometimes he could dance the first kind of dance all night, sometimes he danced the second all night and sometimes he could switch between the two depending on the song. Tonight was one of those nights. He could not help but dance enthusiastically when dancing opposite Diego.

He had laughed in delighted surprise when Diego had stopped being so self-conscious and started dancing properly. Because boy, could his brother dance. Klaus had seen Diego dance a few times over their lifetime, and each time it had come as a surprise, just because Diego was often too stoic, too serious to dance in front of them; but when he did dance he had style, and it had somehow only become bigger and better than ever before.

In short; his brother danced like a bit of a nerd. But it was done with such natural rhythm and skill that he made it somehow, _somehow_ look unfairly cool and effortless. And it was also adorable.

Klaus could also pinpoint the moment that Diego decided he was having a really good time. A grin spread on his face, his dark-lined eyes scrunching up endearingly with it. Klaus got himself hooked on an invisible dancing fishing line and swept forwards, grabbing Diego’s hand as Diego twirled him under his arm.

Klaus had always maintained that if Diego just relaxed and stopped being such a vigilante, he’d be a great time. This was a prime example of why that was clearly true. They were genuinely having fun, which was a precious and treasured thing for the Umbrella Academy kids. With Ben dancing beside them, like an absolute dork, waving his arms about like an interpretative demonstration of his inner-tentacles, Klaus was having a damn good time.

 

***

They danced more like friends than lovers, so when Noah noticed that the spiky haired one had disappeared off to the bathroom and the curly haired one had made his way to the bar, he allowed himself to be encouraged by Amy to go and talk to him.

“Hi,” Noah said to the curly haired one, where he was leaning with his elbows on the bar-top, having just ordered a drink from the barman.

He was even prettier up close. Make-up a little smudged, but attractively so, the guy swept his gaze over him before responding. “Hi,” the guy said, in a soft and lazy voice. “Can I help you?”

“I’m sorry if this is a bit forward, because it’s more than likely the guy that you’re with is your boyfriend, but just in case he isn’t, my friend over there,” Noah indicated Amy across the bar, who gave an awkward wave, “Wanted you to have her number,” Noah handed him a napkin. “And if you aren’t that way inclined, then I wanted you to have mine,” Noah added, when the guy grinned down at the two numbers scrawled on the napkin. “Only if you’re interested, of course.”

The man looked back up at him again. “Well thank you very much for quite possibly the smoothest double-number offer that I have ever received. I’m flattered. But, I’m afraid I’m…” the guy seemed to ponder his choice of word. “Unavailable.”

“And what about your friend?” Noah asked, since the guy hadn’t confirmed that the other was his boyfriend.

They were interrupted for a moment by the barman coming back and saying “Your water,” to the guy, who took the plastic ‘glass’, tipped it in a ‘cheers’ acknowledgement, and then downed it as if it were an alcoholic bevarge. Noah tried not to be distracted by the drops of water that spilled free over the rim and rolled down the sides of his chin. The guy slammed the plastic ‘glass’ back onto the bar, wiped the back of his hand over his mouth and his eyes, glinting with mischief, met Noah’s once more.

“My friend is my brother,” he said. “Adopted, obviously, before you look surprised.” He cocked his head, considering. “He hasn’t long been out of a relationship and he has not been emotionally available after losing said love so suddenly and unexpectedly. But I can pass over the number of your friend over there, as my brother happens to be the female-only way inclined, just in case he is interested.” He plucked the napkin off the bar. “But I can make no promises.”

“Of course. No worries either way,” Noah insisted. “But thanks. It was nice to talk to you.”

The guy smiled again, “I hope you enjoy the rest of your night.”

“You too,” Noah smiled back, before retreating to his friends, who all burst into questions at once. “He’s unavailable,” Noah said, “But his brother – the guy he’s with – is straight. So he’s taking his brother your number, Ames, but apparently he’s not long been out of a relationship, so he might not be keen.”

“Either way,” Amy beamed, “You are my hero for giving them my number.”

Noah grinned back at her and slung his arm around her shoulders. “What are friends for?” he said. “Come on guys, let’s go dance!”

***

After a little searching, Klaus discovered Diego surrounded by admirers. Quelle surprise, it was not. Because Diego looked beautiful. And that also meant that Diego needed saving from his appreciative masses; oh how the tables had turned. And Klaus, Klaus was his knight in shining leather and feathers.

“I’m sorry, guys,” Diego was saying, “But my friend will be back any minute and I…”

“Baby,” Klaus announced his arrival, looping his arm around Diego’s neck. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere.” He cast a friendly eye over the interested parties. “I’m sorry fellas,” he patted Diego’s tight-shirted chest. “But this one’s taken.”

The way that Diego turned to look at Klaus thankfully, pleased to see him, was apparently enough evidence of Diego being ‘taken’ for the night, because the little group quickly dispersed.

“I’d just told them all you were my friend,” Diego informed Klaus after the disappointed crowd had left.

“I think it might be easier if they think you’re my boyfriend, so we don’t have to deal with all these men being drawn to that pretty face of yours. We’d end up surrounded. And for the love of god don’t take your top off at any point, that nipple piercing of yours would get us stampeded and crushed to death.”

“I’m not even going to acknowledge what you just said,” Diego replied, deadpan. Before he did a double-take and did, in fact, acknowledge the first part; “ _My_ pretty face?” he scoffed, as though he thought it was all Klaus’ pretty face’s fault. But then he sighed and nodded. “But you’re right. It’ll be easier for the mission if they think we’re together. I did another sweep of the club just now, by the way; the mark’s still not here.”

“The Mark,” Klaus corrected with amusement.

Diego rolled his eyes. “The mark called Mark is still not here yet.”

“What do we do? Message Five, see what he suggests?”

“Or we could dance some more,” Ben suggested.

Diego shrugged, looking sheepish. “Or we could dance some more.”

Klaus hissed in triumphant delight, paired with an equally triumphant fist pump. “Yes. I vote for that option. Let’s go!” He took Diego’s hand and led him back to the floor. “I’ve just told someone else you were my brother, by the way,” Klaus informed Diego as they started dancing again. “Just as an FYI, for when the potential boyfriend-brother-friends rumours start.”

“Oh great. I’m sure that’s going to go down well.”

Klaus shrugged. “Que sera sera,” he waved Diego’s concern aside, but incorporated it into a dance move, because he was a man of style. He then added in an extra flourish, to produce the phone numbered napkin from his pocket. “I told them you were my brother when these numbers were bestowed upon us. ‘Amy’ as named there, is interested in you having her number, if you are also interested.”

Diego paused in his dancing, stuttering to halt. “I…I…I don’t know,” he said, “If I want it.” His face fell a little. “Patch was…”

“I know,” Klaus said. “You don’t have to take it.”

Diego nodded, scanning the room. “Which one is she? The girl who’s number this is?”

“Errr…” Klaus paused to twirl around, looking out for Amy and her handsome friend who gave Klaus their numbers. If Klaus wasn’t emotionally unavailable – still mourning his darling beloved Dave – then he might have considered accepting it. His eyes caught on something. “I don’t see Amy,” he said, “But I do see our marky Mark.”

The change in Diego’s posture and focus, the abrupt switch from fun to business, was quite remarkable. “Let’s go.”

And just like that, unfortunately, Amy and Noah’s numbers were forgotten.

“Shame we couldn’t have danced for a bit longer,” Ben said.

“It’s a shame we couldn’t have danced for just a little bit longer,” Klaus echoed Ben’s sentiment.

“I know,” Diego, surprisingly, agreed. He had moved past Klaus, but looked back at him with a smile, “We’ll have to do it again sometime. Maybe.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” Klaus leapt on the possibility of taking Diego out dancing again. Klaus liked relaxed, carefree dancing Diego.

He expected Diego to protest, but his brother just said, “Yeah. Ok.”

Klaus was never one to let an opportunity slide; “I can do your make-up again too if you…”

“No.”

“You can’t win every battle,” Klaus commented to Ben, before following Diego off the dance floor and into their mission. “Even if he does look hella good in war paint.”

***

Wade at the Warehouse

 

“Shit, they’ve found us! How the hell have they found us?”

“Well maybe if Diego wasn’t such a show-off.”

“ _Me_ a show-off? Says the thirteen-year-old-looking kid who materialises out of thin air and threatens people?”

“I’m pretty sure Vanya bringing down that building was probably a bit of a sign. No offence Vanya.”

“Oh, yeah, sure, none taken. Asshole.”

“And Luther then lifting part of that same building was just _ordinary_ was it?”

“Great, so this is somehow _my_ fault is it?”

“Fuck you, Monkey Man.”

“Hey! Hey! Hey! Guys! Cool it.”

“I cannot believe that me and Allison are blameless for once.”

“Oh leave it, Klaus, would you?”

“We don’t have _time_ for this. We could be being surrounded as we speak.”

“So what do we do?”

Everyone turned to look at Luther. Even Number Five. Diego did too. It had been a thing he had been becoming more accustomed to since they had travelled back to the past; looking to Luther for the final decision, to give him the benefit of the doubt, a shot at being the Number 1 that their father had always made him try to live up to. Diego had enough of his own problems. He had decided leading wasn’t really for him. Solo-missions, fantastic; teaming up with someone else – usually Klaus – then great, he tended to take the lead there. But he had realised how often being the leader of their group required making an unpopular decision. Diego couldn’t deal with that. Diego liked to save people, save the day. He couldn’t make the same calls that Luther could. It had been hard to accept, but Diego had become accustomed to it over time. Now the group tended to look to Luther or Five for direction.

There was a pause before Luther said “We should split up,” while squinting his eyes like he was just waiting for Diego or Five or Allison to object or call him an idiot.

It didn’t happen. Diego could see the surprise on Luther’s face when Five agreed “Good idea. Let’s do that. Try and draw them different ways. Meet at the van; follow our escape plan A.”

And so the six of them all separated. Or at least, sort of.

“Where are we going?” Klaus asked from behind Diego.

Diego stopped, sighed and turned around to find his brother trailing behind him. “What part of ‘splitting up’ do you not understand?”

“Oh, were we all supposed to split up, like, separately?” Klaus scrubbed a hand over the back of his head sheepishly. “I guess I didn’t listen to that part.”

Diego rolled his eyes heavenward. “Lord you test me.” He stopped short. He had caught himself saying it a lot recently, ever since Eudora… He shook himself out of it. A quick glance around the room was enough for him to know that everyone but he and Klaus had disappeared from the warehouse, all heading to separate hidden emergency exits that they had ensured to install in their base. “It’s fine. You can come with me, alright? But we have to go before…”

“Before what?” a voice interrupted him. Diego and Klaus looked up to see two men standing on the metal walkway over their heads, pointing guns at them. Diego reacted immediately to the sound of the threat, throwing a knife that lodged just over the speaker’s shoulder, because he had somehow anticipated it and ducked. The gunman looked at the knife and back at them as though they had just proven a point. “Before you are proven to be time travelling freak experiments from the future?”

***

There were conspiracies everywhere. _Everywhere._ Everyone was out for themselves; major incidents glossed over, hidden away as though they had never happened at all; people disappearing, _planes_ disappearing; planned industrial accidents, sabotage; cults and religions; shootings, bombs, man-made diseases, global warming; flat earth, false histories, the moon landing; sports events rigged, elections rigged; military bases designing weapons; governments covering up secret facilities and experiments and aliens and shit. And time travel. Oh yeah. Time travel.

Wade believed in some of those conspiracy theories. Not all of them, of course; the Earth isn’t _flat._ But that moon landing? Sure, that could have been faked. Governments could be hiding extra-terrestrial activity. Governments could be hiding a whole lot of experiments. Scientists are always up to something new, all secret-like. An attempt to time travel was just natural progression. They conquered space, they landed on the moon (so they claimed), and now, now it was time for time travel.

Unless, of course, they had already achieved it. Not now, of course, but in the future. Because, obviously, time travellers could come _back_ in time.

The first that Wade heard of the band of time-travellers from the future, he had been heading towards his conspiracy group – The Sense-Sentinels – base, which happened to be his friend Tim’s garage, but whatever.

First he heard was a report of a kid that could zap himself from location to location. Second report was of a guy that took down a massive drug den with only a few knives and deadly precision. Third report was of a tiny woman who had levelled a building without touching it. Fourth was a man that had been spotted lifting parts of that building, shirt ripped and revealing the torso of an _ape._ Fifth was a guy that wore make-up and talked to invisible people. Wade and the Sense-Sentinels had believed at first that this band of freaks of nature had just escaped some kind of experimental facility. But a little more digging, a few more reports, the odd bit of observation, had proven that these people dressed funny, talked about weird technology that did not exist – yet – and discussed films and music and books that nobody had ever heard of. They had overheard them mention the apocalypse. And that was all Wade and his friends needed to hear. Now? Now they needed answers.

Wade and his pals were actively involved in putting theories like this to bed. They had raided a science facility, they had held suspicious fuckers at gunpoint, blackmailed a politician or two for more information. They weren’t afraid to get their hands dirty in pursuit of the truth. To uncover a conspiracy. So that was exactly what they were doing this time. They armed themselves, and, having learned the location of the freaks’ hideout, surrounded it.

Wade and Tim scaled the metal fire escape on the side of the building and edged their way along the metal walkway that ran above the main room of the warehouse. 

Only two of them were in the main room of the building; the one with the knives and the one that talked to himself – or to _something_ else. The last time that Steve had observed them he had reckoned that these two could be dating each other; they had been spotted together often, arms around each other, or pulling each other along by the hand, or with their heads ducked close together; which was useful information, because there was no better way to threaten someone than by threatening their nearest and dearest.

The knife guy was speaking as Wade and Tim made their way along the walkway.  “Lord you test me,” the knife guy said before looking around the room. “It’s fine. You can come with me, alright? But we have to go before…”

“Before what?” Wade interrupted him, as he and Tim levelled their guns at them. The pair looked up at them, the knife-wielder reacting instantly and with superhuman speed and precision, he threw a knife at them. Wade, however, had anticipated such a move, and ducked enough for the knife to lodge just over his shoulder. “Before you are proven to be time travelling freak experiments from the future?” He finished.

The one that they had observed talking to himself laughed a high hysterical kind of laugh. “Time travellers?” he said. “I’m sorry fellas, but what have you been taking? I understand how you’re feeling right now, ok? I really do. I remember one time a little white tablet made me think I was a superhero, until...”

“Cut the act, freak,” Tim snapped. “We’ve been watching you for weeks.”

“Bit creepy,” the weird one said.

“Leave, now,” the one with the knives threatened them, tone hard, “Or I’ll make sure the next blades hit their targets.”

“From around corners you mean? We know you’re special trained. Freakishly trained. Or created. Bred. In some secret programme. No-one should be able to throw knives like that. We can’t risk having weaponized humans…”

“Weaponized humans?” the weird one cackled again. “Bred? Secret programme? Please, can you hear yourselves? See sense, fellas; this is clearly a misunderstanding. And I honestly don’t believe that you are the sort of people to actually shoot us…”

Wade stopped the weird one in his tracks by firing his gun towards the floor, close enough to the two freaks to be a threat. The weird one leapt back and quickly situated himself behind the one with the knives. “I stand corrected,” he said, and then, “Diego, go on, do your thing.”

Wade had to duck as blades were thrown in multiple directions. They had planned ahead and were wearing padded bulletproof clothing, so vital hits didn’t meet their marks. The knife-guy must have figured that out quickly, as Wade then heard a soft thud and a shriek as Steve and Phil got blades in their legs, bringing them down, Tim got sliced in the arm.

“Fuck,” Wade spat, as the cries of pain sprang up.

“My knight in black leather armour,” the weird one was saying.

“Yeah, yeah,” the one with the knives said. “Don’t start with that just yet.”

“What’s this? Diego not wanting his praises sung? Well I’m going to do it anyway, whether you like it or not. You’re the best BF a guy could ask for.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s ‘BFF’,” the other replied, tone distracted. He was reaching for more knives in his holster while turning slowly, cautiously, looking in the direction he had heard Steve and Phil yell; Wade could see it all through a gap in the railings.

“What do you know, Diego? You’re not ‘down with the kids’.”

“No, but I’m still pretty sure it’s BFF.”

The casualness of how they were treating their predicament made Wade see red, and, putting his hunting experience to use, quickly aimed over the railing when the one with the knives had his back turned, and pulled the trigger.

***

Diego was in the midst of reaching for more knives when the gun went off. Behind him. But the blossom of pain didn’t come. Diego whipped around and stared wide eyed at Klaus, who was gaping down at the patch of red growing in his shirt.

“Klaus!” Diego yelled as Klaus choked out “Shit,” and dropped towards the ground. Diego went with him, catching him and lowering the rest of the way to the floor.

“Klaus! Klaus, Klaus?” Diego muttered in a mantra. “You’re ok Klaus, you’re ok.” He pulled aside Klaus’ jacket and lifted his top to see where he had been hit. He breathed a shaky sigh of relief when he saw that the bullet had clipped Klaus’ side and wouldn’t have hit anything vital. He quickly unwound the scarf Klaus was wearing from around his neck to press it against the wound to apply pressure and prevent the loss of too much blood. “You’ll be fine, you’ll be fine. Ok?”

Klaus smiled pain-hazily up at him, reaching up to pat at Diego’s cheek, but really just smushing his palm into various parts of Diego’s face. “Turn that frown upside down, darling. I’m alright. Sort these assholes out first.”

“I’ll kill these assholes dead,” Diego corrected, promised, already reaching for his next knife.

“Oh no you don’t,” a voice warned behind them. “You touch that blade and I’ll shoot your hand. And then you.”

Diego lifted one of his hands up in a sign of surrender. He kept the other one on Klaus; pressing the scarf to the bullet wound.

“Both hands up.”

Diego’s jaw tightened, and he forced out, “I need my hands to help him.”

“It’s alright love,” Klaus said to him, voice strained with pain. “I’ll live.”

“You won’t if your boyfriend doesn’t put his other hand up right now. We will shoot you.”

Diego could tell from the man’s tone that he meant it. His eyes were still on Klaus’ as he slowly lifted his other hand so that both of them were in the air. Klaus winced as he moved his own arm to take the scarf and apply pressure on the wound himself.

“Boyfriend,” Klaus repeated to Diego, almost jovially. Klaus often did this; acted blasé when he was afraid or in pain. Diego supposed Klaus had had a lot of practice; forcing himself not to act afraid so that their father wouldn’t keep trying to make him face his fears. “Did you hear that, Diego? It’s happened again. We really should just sign the papers and make it official; set a date and be done with it.”

“That’s your proposal, is it, bro? Oh thanks. That’s real romantic,” Diego humoured him, aiming to make Klaus smile, even as he himself stayed tense and ready as the gunmen began to emerge from their hiding places; two limping, Diego noted with satisfaction, and one holding a limp arm close to his body. The one that shot Klaus was descending the metal stairs from the walkway above. He was the one Diego was going to kill first.

“Only the best for you, babe,” Klaus said, his answering smile more a grimace. He was also watching the gunmen from the slitted corners of his eyes. As they approached he wailed so suddenly and dramatically that Diego almost believed him for a second. “Oh! Oh! My life is flashing before my eyes! Horrendously tragic it is too! But,” he sighed, reaching up to pat at Diego’s face again. “At least I got to see your beautiful face before I perish…”

“Shut up,” one of the men snarled. “ _Shut up_. Or I’ll shoot you again.”

“Again? Again! Oh but you _can’t_! I couldn’t survive another! The pain! It’s too much. I think I see a white light…”

“Shut _up_ ,” the man repeated, “Or I’ll shoot _him_ instead.” And Diego felt the far-too-familiar feeling of a gun barrel being pressed to the back of his head.

 _That_ worked a charm. Klaus’ mouth snapped shut and he stared up at Diego, who stared back.

“Now admit it. Tell us the truth,” another of the men demanded. “Admit who you really are.”

Diego glanced up, his instinct having caught on movement at the back of the warehouse, behind the gunmen. “I don’t think we’ll be telling you anything,” Diego gritted out through his teeth, having seen who it was.

“I think you will. We have ways of making you talk. Ways to make you tell us the truth. Really unpleasant ways.”

“To make us tell the truth about what, exactly?” Klaus demanded, hissing in pain as he shifted the hand he had pressed over his own bullet wound. “That we’re time travellers?” he snorted and winced. “Whatever, man. Time travel doesn’t _exist_.”

“You sure about that?” The gun pressed tighter against Diego’s skull. “Because that’s not what we heard.”

“Are you _sure_ that’s not what you heard?” a voice piped up from the back of the warehouse, and all the men swung around to face it, and heard Allison say; “Because _I heard a_ _rumour_ …”

***

“You’ll be ok,” Diego promised, dropping his hands to check on Klaus the second that Allison utilised her powers, and Luther and Allison and Number Five had come bursting in on mass and all the gunmen were dead.

“Of course I will be,” Klaus dismissed. He was pale, but he didn’t look like his consciousness was going to fail him anytime soon. Diego took over applying pressure to the wound. “I’ve had worse. And even if I wasn’t, dying in your arms wouldn’t be the worst way to go. Not by far,” he winked. Honest to god winked while suffering from a bullet wound. “And neither is dying in _my_ arms, right Dave?” Klaus’ eyes slid over to the space over Diego’s shoulder. “Oh go on, Dave, laugh! Where’s that morbid sense of humour of yours gone?”

“Dave’s here?”

“He’s here. He’s very upset I’ve been shot. And Ben’s here. He was panicking because I can’t seem to summon him when I’m injured so he couldn’t help.”

“They know I wouldn’t have let you…”

Klaus smiled tiredly. “They know. I know.”

Diego swallowed heavily. He was about to reply when Allison and Vanya dropped down beside them, Luther and Number Five not far behind.

“Sorry we took so long,” Vanya said before Diego could ask them why it had.

“We all arrived separately at the van as planned and waited,” Luther explained, “And when you both didn’t show we came straight back. But we had to deal with a few of their guys on the way in.”

“It’s alright,” Klaus said, “No harm done. Well, a little harm, actually, but, you know. It’s fine.”

“You might not be saying that when we have to fish that bullet out of you,” Diego warned.

“Well,” Klaus countered back at him, “It’s a good job I have my boyfriend here to hold my hand.”

“Dave’s here?” Allison looked around.

“Well yes,” Klaus waved a finger in Dave’s direction to point out his location, so that everyone could chorus their hellos. “But I was actually talking about Diego. Obviously.”

Number Five snorted, “It happened again, then.”

“We’ve decided to just pick a date for the wedding and be done with it.”

“Speak for yourself.”

“Hey! So much for the devoted boyfriend; try harder, Diego! Besides,” Klaus winced as Number Five removed the scarf to inspect the wound. “You were the one that said my proposal wasn’t romantic enough.”

“And ‘pick a date and be done with it’ is super romantic isn’t it?” Vanya teased.

“Good point,” Klaus agreed, gritting his teeth as Number Five began to inspect the bullet wound more closely. “You will hold my hand though, won’t you?” Klaus pouted at Diego, holding out his hand.

“Yeah, Klaus,” Diego sighed, reaching out to take his brother’s hand. “I’ll hold your hand.”

***

 

Ben at the Birthday

 

“Ben,” Klaus declared to Ben on the 30th September; the day before the Umbrella Academy’s collective birthdays. “I have decided who our test subject will be.”

“Hmm let me guess…” Ben responded with as much sarcasm as possible, “Is it Diego? By any chance?”

Klaus looked amazed. “How did you guess?”

Ben stared at him incredulously. “You’re joking right?”

Klaus looked at him blankly.

Ben rolled his eyes exaggeratedly. “Of _course_ you were going to pick Diego. Besides me he’s clearly your favourite.”

“How dare you accuse me of favouritism,” Klaus exclaimed, faux-affronted.

“You _openly_ tell everyone that Diego and I are your favourites.”

“Well,” Klaus agreed almost immediately, thoughtful, “I suppose I have said that once or twice.”

“Once or twice?” Ben scoffed. “You told Diego he was your favourite _this morning_ when you stole that half-eaten slice of toast out of his hand and he just _let you_.”

“Oh yes, so I did.”

“And yesterday when you couldn’t be bothered to drive so you made Diego drive you, even though he didn’t have any reason to go out?”

“Ah, yes, yes, true.”

“And then last week…”

Klaus threw up his hands. “You have made your point Ben, sheesh!”

One of the first times Klaus had declared Diego his favourite was in the first few days that they had arrived in the past. Allison had still been recovering, her voice only just forming words for her. She would struggle with sentences, getting words out.

Diego had said to her “Just picture the word in your mind.” just like their Mom had said to him when he been growing up with his stammer.

Allison had smiled at him gratefully.

“He’s just my favourite,” Klaus had spoken to Ben, out of Diego and Allison’s earshot, “Besides you of course.”

And that had largely been the start of many an occasion in which Klaus had declared Diego his favourite. So when Klaus had suggested this little experiment, Ben had had absolutely no doubt that Klaus would choose Diego. If Ben was being perfectly honest, Diego would have been _his_ first choice too.

“Well I approve of your choice,” Ben voiced said opinion aloud. “Besides, with our birthday coming up, I know he’s been missing Mom.”

“And hopefully this will cheer him up!”

“If it works.”

“It will work. Ye of little faith.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it.”

“Yeah, well, so will I. And so will he,” Klaus glanced at him.

“Worth a shot though,” Ben said.

“Worth a shot,” Klaus agreed.

***

“I don’t trust either of you,” Diego declared as Klaus led him into the alleyway behind the warehouse.

“You can’t even see Ben and you don’t trust him?” Klaus complained.

“I don’t need to see him to know that you two are up to something.”

“He’s ironically perceptive on this occasion,” Ben commented.

Klaus ignored Ben and turned around, pushing at Diego’s shoulders until he sat down on the empty crates behind him. “You, Diego Hargreeves, have been chosen!”

Diego’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “For what?”

“For a surprise! Lucky you!”

“No. No thank you. I don’t want it.”

“You don’t know what it is yet!”

“It involves you and Ben scheming…” Diego was pushing himself back up off the crate. “And if that is the case then I…”

“For Pete’s sake,” Ben threw his hands up in the air, “Let’s just…”

“Trust me,” Klaus interrupted the both of them. “Just, trust me ok? Diego, please sit. Ben, please be quiet.” Klaus didn’t have time to appreciate that both brothers immediately displayed their trust in him by fulfilling his requests. “I need to concentrate.”

Klaus had slowly been working on his powers, but the bullet wound a couple of months ago had set back his strength and his energy. It still required a lot of concentration, and he wasn’t going to get that with Diego and Ben both chattering on; the living and dead in each ear.

But not for long. Not for long.

Klaus screwed his eyes shut, clenched his fists out in front of him and concentrated. Hard.

Klaus cracked his eyes open at Diego’s gasp as ghost-Ben disappeared beside Klaus and materialised before them. Not tentacle-Ben, just _Ben._ Diego was staring, wide-eyed and gaping as the blue light connecting Klaus to Ben ebbed a little, and Ben became far more corporeal than any other time they had tried it before.

Diego leapt to his feet. “Ben?” he gasped. “Klaus? What?”

“It’s a birthday surprise for the others, so Ben can join us tomorrow,” Klaus explained, voice strained. “But we wanted to test it out, first, just in case it didn’t work, and you were our first choice of test subject.”

Diego’s eyes dragged from Klaus back to Ben. “Ben?” he asked, voice soft.

“Hey Diego,” Ben said, with a wobbly smile.

“Jesus…” Diego staggered a little, staring, eyes shining a little and stepped forwards, reaching out a hand as though to touch Ben, stopping short before he did so like he wasn’t sure whether his hand was going to go right through him. “Ben, it’s so good to see you.”

“It’s good to speak to you, finally,” Ben returned.

“I-I-I love y-you, bro,” Diego stammered out, staring as his hand actually landed on Ben’s shoulder. “And I’m sorry, I’m so sorry...what happened, it was fucking fucked up and dad never explained and I hated him for it, I _hated_ him…”

“I know, Diego, alright? I know,” Ben assured him, locking eye contact. “And I love you too, man.”

“Fuck,” Diego choked, “It’s so good to see you.” He yanked Ben into a hug, securing his arms tight around his neck and burying his head into his shoulder. “Thank you,” he said, voice wobby and thick, and Klaus was surprised when Diego’s arm blindly reached out and grabbed Klaus’ wrist, yanking him into the hug too.

Klaus was not averse to a hug. In fact, he was a master of them. So he was all too enthusiastic to snuggle into a quality bro-hug.

They stayed that way for some time; Klaus and Diego’s arms wrapping Ben up between them, Diego attempting not to cry and failing terribly into Ben’s shoulder, Ben softly babbling chirpy words a hundred miles a minute to Diego as though making up for lost time, and Klaus enjoying the hug while concentrating on keeping Ben corporeal and present.

It wasn’t by choice that they broke the hug. They only did that when they realised they had gained an audience. Several women were observing them, stage-whispering to each other; having experienced enough crazy misunderstanding-scenarios by that point to recognise the signs, it was easy to gather what it was they thought they were witnessing.

“Are they…?” Diego grumbled, scrubbing his sleeve over his eyes angrily to dry the escaped tears.

“Oh no. No. No,” Ben was shaking his head in horror.

“Yep, they think we were in a romantic embrace,” Klaus side-eyed Ben, a little gleeful. “All three of us.”

“Oh my god,” Ben said slowly, stunned.

“You’re a part of this now Ben,” Klaus confirmed smugly, before turning to the women. “This is a private moment!” he called to them, waving them away irritably. “Move along, you vultures!”

“You’re not making this look any less suspect,” Diego muttered to him.

Klaus ignored him. “Have you never seen a throuple before?!” Klaus declared loudly to the women. “Have some respect for our privacy!”

“Have some respect for the dead!” Ben added to the women, because he was helpful like that.

“They are my _brothers_ ,” Diego tried desperately. “We’re goddamn _adopted_.”

Klaus had no idea which part made the women shriek and scatter; the gay-throuple part, the dead part, or the part where they found out they were all brothers. But whichever it was, it worked. The women practically ran away screaming. It was absolutely hilarious.

“Somehow Diego,” Klaus decided thoughtfully. “I think telling them the truth was the worst scenario of all those posed to them.”

“Telling them we’re brothers is worse than telling them that one of us is _dead_?”

“It’s less incestuous,” Klaus shrugged. “So yes, probably.”

“For fuck’s sake.”

“I can’t believe this is happening to _me_ ,” Ben said to himself.

“Sweet revenge,” Klaus waved a finger at him. “For every time you laughed at us getting mistaken for a couple.”

“You bring that upon yourselves,” Ben retorted, “You still frequent that coffee shop as regulars pretending to be a couple just because that barista assumed you were a couple the first time you visited.”

“Yeah, well, we like their coffee, ok? And so does our son Fieval. We can’t help it if people enjoy mistaking us for a couple. Or throuple. Stop deflecting and accept your fun welcome to the misunderstanding-club. You’re a part of a threesome now. So who’s laughing _now_ Ben?”

“All this for a birthday surprise,” Ben lamented.

“It was worth it,” Diego said, suddenly and fiercely. “To see you. I don’t care what they thought they saw.”

“Diego has accepted his fate as my devoted boyfriend,” Klaus informed Ben. “He will accept his fate as yours too.”

Diego rolled his eyes. “Shut up Klaus. I’m just…thank you for doing this, ok? Both of you. I know the others aren’t going to believe it tomorrow.”

“Speaking of which,” Klaus looked at Ben apologetically. “I’m going to have to put this call on hold for now, to save my energy for tomorrow.”

Ben nodded with sad understanding. Diego looked suddenly crestfallen.

“It’s fine Diego,” Ben promised. “I’ll see you tomorrow, ok?”

“Tomorrow,” Diego agreed.

And with that, Ben disappeared, and Klaus sagged, exhausted. Diego rushed to his side to help hold him up.

“I’ve been practicing,” Klaus told him.

“I can see that.”

“I have only been able to conjure Ben this way so far – he’s the only one I’ve even tried it with - but maybe with a little practice…I might see if it works with Dave. And maybe even Detective Patch? If that was something you wanted? You know, for closure or whatever you…”

“I…that w-would be…” Diego sighed heavily and closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. “It’s a lot to take in right now. But thank you, Klaus, seriously.” Diego had never looked so sincere; so proud of him. It made Klaus feel warm and appreciated; made him feel better about himself than any drug had ever managed to do. “And I will think about it. Let’s just get your birthday surprise out of the way first, yeah?”

“The voice of reason; that is why I need you, Diego.”

“I thought I was the voice of reason,” Ben said, appearing back beside Klaus, invisible and silent to all but Klaus once more.

“That’s true. If anyone is the voice of reason of our throuple, it’d definitely be you, Ben. Sorry Diego you’ve been demoted.”

“I can’t argue with that,” Diego agreed reasonably.

“Stop throupling me,” Ben begged.

“You are now a part of the misunderstandings that Diego and I so constantly face, Ben, so you now must endure it with us. Just like Five has to.”

“How are you both so ok with this?”

“We’ve had a lot of practice at this point, as you well know. You just have to accept your fate.”

“Fate? I’m already dead.”

“And yet you bring such _life_ to our throuple _,_ Ben.”

“If you carry on teasing him he won’t turn up to your birthday party,” Diego warned him.

“But then he will miss the fun retelling of this story to the others!”

“No!” Diego and Ben protested at once.

“Oh honestly, such spoilsports! If you don’t get your acts together there will be no cake. For either of you.”

“I don’t eat cake, I’m dead.”

“Oh hush, Ben, must you use that as your excuse for everything?”

Ben stared at him, on the brink of laughing. Ben had developed quite a morbid sense of humour of late, and Klaus knew just how to tickle it.

“Being dead is my _thing_ ,” Ben reminded him.

“Tomorrow it won’t be,” Klaus promised, “Tomorrow Ben Hargreeves, you will be the _life_ and soul of the party.”

***

The Umbrella Academy were all born on 1st October 1989. None of the women that gave birth to them had been pregnant when the day began. On 1st April 2019, the Umbrella Academy caused the apocalypse. But they went back in time to fix it. On 1st October 2019, the Umbrella Academy would have turned thirty. The big 3-0. But instead, the Umbrella Academy found themselves celebrating their thirtieth birthdays on 1st October 2002.

And it got even more complicated than that.

Luther, Diego, Allison and Vanya were turning thirty. Ben hadn’t even made it to twenty. Klaus had ten months on them all because he had served in Vietnam, that he was adamant counted, so was insisting that he was celebrating his thirty-year-and-ten-month-birthday. And Number Five? Number Five was turning fifty-nine mentally and fourteen physically.

Sure, it was a big fucking mess of sorts, there was no denying that as far as Ben was concerned. _But_ it was the first birthday they had all spent together since Five had disappeared at the age of thirteen. And it was actually fun, so far. Vanya in particular seemed utterly thrilled to be so included in the festivities. Ben was looking forward to being a part of it too, so long as Klaus could pull off the same miraculous display of his powers that he had achieved the day before with Diego as test subject.

Ben’s time would be soon; he knew because Klaus had been glancing at him meaningfully for half an hour. But right at that moment, everyone was busy enjoying making fun of Number Five.

“Happy birthday, old man!” Klaus had crowed, as Luther presented him with a ’ _59_ ’ birthday card, and Vanya presented him with a ‘ _14_ ’ birthday card.

“We’ve got a book on puberty and a zimmer-frame wrapped up for you,” Luther told him with a grin.

“Fuck the lot of you,” Number Five told them jovially, taking both cards and standing them up alongside the four ‘ _30_ ’ cards; the card that had a ‘ _30_ ’ on it with ‘ _\+ 10 months_ ’ scribbled beside it in Klaus’ handwriting; and the ‘ _30_ ’ card that had ‘ _including the years of after-livin_ ’’ scribbled beside it – again, in Klaus’ handwriting.

“You can’t deny it, Five,” Vanya teased. “You look fourteen, but last week you did that old man thing where you couldn’t remember the name of the person you were speaking to. _Twice_.”

“Allison…Van… _Vanya_ ,” Klaus mimicked. “Diego! I mean Ben…Luth… _Klaus_.”

“I’m not too old to take your ass _down_ Klaus,” Five warned over the others’ sniggering. Ben was laughing too, although nobody but Klaus could hear him.

“Well don’t do it just yet,” Klaus requested. “You’ll spoil my grand surprise.”

“What surprise?” Allison asked excitably, finally having perked up properly for the first time that day; Ben knew she was struggling to enjoy a birthday without Claire. “Klaus?”

Diego, who had also finally perked up – dealing with his first birthday without their Mom – was trying to hide his own excitement so as not to give anything away.

One minute Ben was standing to Klaus’ left, the next minute he felt the strange tingling sensation that he was only just becoming accustomed to; as he found himself suddenly standing in front of Klaus instead. Ben was so busy checking that he actually had materialised; looking at his own hands to make sure he wasn’t glowing blue and translucent, that he didn’t notice everyone staring and gaping at him, at first.

“Ben?” Allison asked in wonderment, and it was only then that Ben looked up to find all their eyes on him, and he grinned triumphantly.

“It worked!” he turned around to beam at Klaus, before turning back to their siblings. “Hi guys,” he said.

“Happy birthday Ben,” Vanya said quietly, with tears in her eyes, and the others all chorused it after her.

Ben’s smile wobbled. “Happy birthday guys,” he said.

***

Hugs and questions had been thrown at Ben a mile a minute and Ben was answering them all even faster, like they all knew that Ben was on a time limit, and that Klaus wouldn’t have the energy to keep him there for too long.

Diego, who had had his chance to speak to Ben the day before, left the group to grab Klaus a chair, the absolute saint that he was, and make Klaus sit in it so that he could continue his efforts to concentrate and keep Ben corporeal and with them for as long as possible.

“How did you pull this off Klaus?” Number Five asked eventually, actually sounding impressed.

Klaus preened a little. “We’ve been practicing for a few months. And we did a test-run yesterday with Diego. We wanted to make sure that it worked and that we weren’t just going to get everybody’s hopes up.” He felt the need to explain why Diego had been the favoured test subject; but not one of them seemed bothered. Maybe Klaus truly did announce Diego his favourite too often. Ah well, he wasn’t about to stop now. “And we wanted it to be a surprise.” He smirked to himself. “The test worked, obviously, and not only did we surprise Diego, but we ended up surprising some women even more instead…” Diego jabbed him with one of his stabby fingers to make him shut up, and just like that, he was denounced as Klaus’ favourite for the time being.

“Don’t Klaus,” Diego snapped, at the same time as Ben turned around with wide-eyes and begged the exact same thing.

But Diego and Ben’s reactions had just intrigued the rest of them even more.

Luther was glancing between them all. “And how exactly did you surprise these women?”

“Oh,” Klaus waved away his suspicion with a smug hand. He smiled innocently up at Diego. “We were the victim of another of those partner-parent misunderstandings, weren’t we Diego?”

Diego grumbled something half-hearted about Klaus being his constant burden. He could be so very charming.

“Didn’t we Ben?” Klaus pressed.

Ben nodded, having gotten over his initial embarrassment and was now looking to be on the verge of bursting into laughter.

“Care to expand on that?” Number Five asked impatiently, because he was an impatient old man-child. 

“Well, you know how it goes,” Klaus started, “It was just another of those weird far-fetched misunderstanding scenarios that seem to be getting crazier and crazier. But you know,” he shrugged. “It’s still a pretty funny story…”

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed! Comments, kudos and bookmarks are very much appreciated. As much as Hazel appreciates a good doughnut and Number Five appreciates a decent cup of coffee. Thanks for reading!
> 
> Just in case any of you are interested; I have also written two other Umbrella Academy fics! Both dedicated to the Holy Trinity, our even numbers 2, 4 and 6. They are called 'Keep A Light On' and 'The Middle and Medium'. If you check them out, I hope you enjoy!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [I have a name, goddamn it](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18094175) by [spikedpoppies](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spikedpoppies/pseuds/spikedpoppies)




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